Why Militant Ginger should avoid politics...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama will restart military tribunals for a small number of Guantanamo detainees, with new legal protections for terror suspects, U.S. officials said. Full story here.

Oh, great. Thanks a lot, Obama...

Yesterday, I rail about how you've broke the promise to end the unethical detention of 'terror suspects' - and now you've delivered everything that I argued for! Yesterday's point was... erm... pointless?

Now, after careful review of the system implemented during the Bush administration, President Obama will continue to 'process' detainees. Major changes will be made to the system, however:

• (Some) suspects will get a trial, instead of being held indefinitely and without charge.
• Hearsay evidence ("I heard this guy said that this happened") won't be allowed.
• Nor will evidence obtained through 'enhanced interrogation techniques' (i.e. torture.)
• Detainees have the right to silence, instead of being sanctioned for refusing to testify.

Okay, so it's not like these detainees now have full constitutional rights, but that's okay with me. Yesterday's discussion with Tom convinced me that an accountable and transparent military tribunal is an appropriate court of justice for these detainees, who fall into the crack between 'prisoners of war' and 'criminal suspects.'

What I did object to was not giving them a trial, denying them basic human rights and obtaining 'evidence' through means which are commonly regarded as torture.

In so far as that, it seems like President Obama and I are on the same page.

It's still sketchy that dozens of detainees haven't been put on trial, charged or released years after their initial capture - but this is a step in the right direction and it's a marked improvement over what went before.

As for the liberals who are going to be enraged by Obama's decision - arguing that the detainees deserve full constitutional rights - I think people like Tom have convinced me that this isn't the case.

The Bill of Rights and the Constitution very clearly state that rights are awarded differently in wartime. Some people might argue that America isn't at war - but if that's the case, what the hell are our troops doing dodging bullets in Afghanistan and Iraq?

Obama Breaks his First Promise

Since writing this, Obama's made some positive moves that completely undermine everything I complained about! Thanks for nuttin', Mr President! Read this post to learn more.

Obama mulls 'indefinite detention' of terror suspects
AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) – As part of its plans to close Guantanamo Bay, the Obama administration is considering holding some of the detainees indefinitely and without trial on US soil, US media reported Thursday. Fulls story here.

You know, I've read a lot of posts from conservative bloggers about President Obama breaking promises, or failing to deliver the changes he said he would (see Coffee Bean's blog here, or Reverse_Vampyr's here.)

Until this point, I'd taken all that criticism with a pinch of salt - after all, many of Obama's detractors (especially on conservative talk radio) descended into childish petulance simply because he won the White House.

But now Obama's broken a promise I'd believed in, too - that America would cease the sketchy shenanigans occurring in Guantanemo Bay. While Obama has decided to close that detention facility, he's now pondering the continued indefinite imprisonment of 'terror suspects' without charge or trial.

This is a total volte-face on his campaign promise, when he pledged to end the Bush administration's policy of locking people up without any accountability. That behavior is just wrong - especially when it's done by a country that prides itself on representing freedom, liberty and justice throughout the world.

Now since I first started opinionating on the subject, I have received quite an education (largely from regular contributor Tom) that has clarified why the Bush administration felt empowered to imprison people without any regard to habeus corpus: We're at war.

In World War II, for example, nobody expected to offer German prisoners of war trials or tribunals - and they certainly didn't get released or sent home until after the war was over.

But the 'War on Terror' has always been a fuzzy, poorly defined conflict and in recent months, that 'war' has dropped off the radar completely (Obama's given it the less emotive title of 'Overseas Contingency Operation')

The detainees in Guantanemo aren't 'enemy combatants.' They're not criminal detainees, either. They're not 'anything,' really. It's this lack of designation which gave the Bush administration the loophole to lock them up indefinitely (the Bush administration even tried to deny them the basic human rights granted under Article 3 of the Geneva Convention.)

Now, I'm not arguing that the detainees aren't potentially dangerous people - terrorists committed to causing terror and destruction across the free world. I'm just arguing that America - the 'land of the free' - has a responsibility to set an example to the rest of the world in how we deal with people in our power.

If the detainees at Guantanamo Bay are dangerous terrorists - people who have committed atrocities already and threaten to commit more if they're released - then we should continue to lock them up to protect America and the rest of the world.

However, we first need to establish by fact of law that these prisoners committed the crimes for which they were detained. Secondly, and more importantly, we need to establish that they pose a continued threat to world peace.

As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter if these facts are established in a court of law or a military tribunal - but they do need to be established and it does need to done in a transparent, accountable environment.

It's not even that difficult. A detainee stands trial for throwing a hand grenade at an American soldier in Afghanistan? That soldier's testimony is enough to convice me he's guilty - and would be lobbing more grenades if given the opportunity again. Sentence him and lock him up.

I'm a reasonable, rational guy. It wouldn't take much to convince me that a detainee is a dangerous terrorist and should remained locked up. However, I still deserve to hear that case made. I don't trust the government enough to blindly hand them authority over other people's lives.

I'm not suggesting that the detainees deserve (or even appreciate) the concept of a 'fair trial' or basic legal rights or protections - but this is America, a country which was established on the ideal of justice for all. We can't claim to be principled people if we turn our back on those principles as soon as it's politically convenient.

The Founding Fathers rebelled against Britain for many reasons, including because King George III suspended their habeus corpus rights during colonial squabbles and denied those accused of smuggling, piracy, treason or sedition fair trials in their homeland (shipping some off to England for trial, or sentencing others without letting them plead their case in front of a jury.)

These rights are an essential, foundational part of what America stands for - and even in the midst of a 'War on Terror,' we need to stick to them.

What constitutes torture?

"Waterboarding is inhumane, it is torture, and it is illegal."

Quoted from a letter by Rear Admiral Donald J. Guter, US Navy, Rear Admiral John D. Hutson, US Navy, Major General John L. Fugh, US Army and Brigadier General David M. Brahms, US Marine Corps (all retired, formerly of the Judge Advocates General judicial arm of the U.S. military

President Obama recently caused consternation when he released formerly classified documents describing the much-debated 'enhanced interrogation techniques' used against prisoners and those accused of terrorism by the CIA and Homeland Security.

According to the reports, the six prescribed 'techniques' were as follows:

The Attention Grab: The interrogator forcefully grabs the shirt front of the prisoner and shakes him.

Attention Slap: An open-handed slap aimed at causing pain and triggering fear.

The Belly Slap: A hard open-handed slap to the stomach. The aim is to cause pain, but not internal injury. Doctors consulted advised against using a punch, which could cause lasting internal damage.

Long Time Standing: This technique is described as among the most effective. Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are effective in yielding confessions.

The Cold Cell: The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time in the cell the prisoner is doused with cold water.

Water Boarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.

The question of whether or not these 'techniques' can be classified as 'torture' is something that's being hotly debated at the moment.

Conservatives argue that they're not 'torture' as they don't cause any long-term physical suffering to the victim. Also, any question about how ethical these 'enhanced interrogation techniques' are is mitigated by the value of the information that has been gleaned from using them.

But as far as I'm concerned, the very fact that we're debating whether or not these 'techniques' could be classified as torture pretty much answers that question - of course they are. Waterboarding is the most troubling of them.

Is waterboarding torture?

There's a general consensus condemning techniques like 'waterboarding' - and it's not amongst 'liberals' and 'lefties' like the conservatives might think.

Many, if not most, military experts agree that waterboarding is clear, unequivocal torture.

John McCain had this to say during his campaign for the White House:

"Waterboarding is where a prisoner is restrained and blindfolded while an interrogator pours water on his face and into his mouth—causing the prisoner to believe he is being drowned.

He isn't, of course; there is no intention to injure him physically. But if you gave people who have suffered abuse as prisoners a choice between a beating and a mock execution, many, including me, would choose a beating.

The effects of most beatings heal. The memory of an execution will haunt someone for a very long time and damage his or her psyche in ways that may never heal.

In my view, to make someone believe that you are killing him by drowning is no different than holding a pistol to his head and firing a blank.

I believe that it is torture. Very exquisite torture."

If the words of John McCain aren't enough to convince you, a quite glance at a history book should. The origins of 'waterboarding' are linked to the Spanish Inquisition - a brutal period of Spanish history in which those accused of heresy were tortured into giving confessions through a variety of brutal methods.

The tortura del agua, what we now know of as 'waterboarding', was a favorite as it caused no scars, burns or visible injuries on the victim. This made their 'confessions' that much more compelling, as if wouldn't have been obvious that they'd been acquired through the use of torture.

The United States first experimented with waterboarding (then know as 'the water cure') during the Spanish-American war of 1898.

When President Roosevelt learned that a prisoner, Tobeniano Ealdama, had been tortured with 'the water cure' by a certain Captain Edwin Glenn, he dismissed the Captain from the army immediately and called upon the army to "prevent the occurrence of all such acts in the future."

Waterboarding was a technique used with alarming regularity by the Japanese Kempeitai and Nazi Gestapo during World War 2. French paratroopers later used it during the Algerian War of 1954-62. Henri Alleg, a French-Algerian journalist who was waterboarded during the conflict, reported that accidental death of victims was 'very frequent.' He described his experiences:

"I couldn't hold on for more than a few moments. I had the impression of drowning, and a terrible agony, that of death itself, took possession of me. In spite of myself, all the muscles of my body struggled uselessly to save me from suffocation."

Henri Alleg, La Question, 1958

Waterboarding was officially regarded as torture by American generals during the Vietnam War It's use was strictly forbidden - with soldiers found guilty of using the technique facing swift court-martial.



How that position could have changed in the intervening forty years is beyond me. This was a favorite torture technique of the Pinochet regime and the Khmer Rouge - that in itself rules out any ambiguity for all but the most rational of people.

Was torture worth it?

Like in much of what they do, conservatives have a contradictory two-pronged defense regarding waterboarding. On the one hand, they argue that it's not torture. Then, they argue that torture like waterboarding would be acceptable, anyway, because the information gleaned from it helped defend America from terrorism.

Turning to John McCain once again - probably the best qualified man in America to discuss the reality of torture - he has only this to say:

"I was once physically coerced to provide my enemies with the names of the members of my flight squadron.

Instead, I gave them the names of the Green Bay Packers' offensive line, knowing that providing them false information was sufficient to suspend the abuse.

It seems probable to me that the terrorists we interrogate under less than humane standards of treatment are also likely to resort to deceptive answers."

Certainly, the CIA operatives who 'waterboarded' 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed clearly weren't satisfied with the answers he gave. They were forced to waterboard him 183 times over the course of a single month. That's almost six times every single day.

An effective torture, one imagines, gets answers after only one judicious application.

Because Barack Obama has refused to declassify the information gleaned from waterboarding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, it's impossible to judge whether the techniques were 'worth it.' That being said, it's very doubtful that I'd change my mind on the subject, no matter what information had been gleaned.

As far as I'm concerned, when a country is reduced to torturing its prisoners for the sake of 'protecting the country' it's no longer much of a country worth protecting.

The Bottom Line

Of course, I still think America is worth protecting. However, I disagree completely with the path that the government went down following 9-11 and think that the discussion about the 'validity' of torture is totally bankrupt. Why are we defending the indefensible?

What the conservatives who defend waterboarding, Guantanemo Bay and 'enhanced interrogation techniques' fail to realise is that these 'techniques' are all so unequivocally unAmerican that it's a stain on this country's history that such abuses were ever condoned.

It doesn't matter whether or not the 'victims' of this torture were terrorists. That's backwards thinking, trying to argue that the ends justify unjustifiable means.

The fact is, Americans are meant to be the 'good guys' - and good guys don't do things like torture. Not because torture is illegal, or ineffective (although it's both) - but because it's wrong.

America is a nation founded on the ideals of justice and freedom. As a nation, we've always believed (rightly or wrongly) that there are some moral absolutes. Whether or not torture works should always be second to whether we want America to be known as a country that tortures.

We condemn foreign lands that commit torture. One of the justifications for invading Iraq was that Saddam Hussein brutally tormented his subjects in secret 'torture factories.'

So when we discuss the issue of 'waterboarding' and other 'enhanced interrogation techniques,' it's that we should be thinking about. Do we want to live in a country that commits the crimes Saddam Hussein was eventually hanged for?

I certainly don't - and I'm overjoyed that President Obama has exposed this scandal so we can make sure it's never repeated.

More on Gitmo and the Supreme Court

A few emails raised some issues regarding the Supreme Court's decision to allow detainees of Guantanamo Bay to challenge their imprisonment.

Issue 1: The US Constitution protects American Citizens and aliens ON United States territory. Since Guantanamo bay is in Cuba and the detainees aren't American, they shouldn't be given Constitutional rights.

Rebuttal: Guantanamo Bay is effectively United States territory. It was a military base cynically established 90 miles from Florida's coast to allow the government to detain 'enemy combatants' without having to worry about pesky things like the Constitution. But for all intents and purposes, it is American territory. American troops. American equipment. American fences protecting American turf and American burgers and hot dogs served in the canteen. As damned-as-near it, it's American soil and to argue it isn't is just semantics. That's why the Supreme Court ruled that the detainees have Constitutional rights.

Issue 2: The detainees are Prisoners of War and therefore don't have the same Constitutional rights as defendants in Criminal cases.

Rebuttal: I can see the logic behind this - we certainly didn't offer Japanese or German prisoners of war Constitutional rights during World War II. However, the reality is this: Nobody's quite sure if these detainees are enemy combatants or not. I remind you of the 13 year old held without charge in Gitmo for two years (and then released.)

Because of the ambiguous nature of the 'war on terror,' we're left with the burden of proving that these detainees are enemy soldiers and not just Afghanistani goat herders. The burden of proof hasn't been met - and therefore the government can't treat these detainees as prisoners of war on innuendo alone.

Conclusion: The words 'piss up' and 'brewery' spring to mind - as in 'couldn't organise one.'

During the start of the war, when public opinion was behind them, the military should have made public record of how and when these detainees were captured - and, most importantly, WHY.

Instead, the murky government has scooped up people (perhaps even at random) and held them without charge for years. Are they guilty? Apparently, we the American public aren't privileged enough to find out. All we're 'privileged' enough to do is see our tax dollars go towards paying to incarcerate these people.

If the government wants to spend our money running an internment camp, I think it's only fair that they show us what the people who are interned there are guilty of.

Americans believe in certain inalienable rights extended to all men (not just US citizens). That much is 'self evident' (according to the Declaration of Independence.) No American authority has the right to take those inalienable rights away from anybody - at least not without good evidence.

When it comes to Guantanamo Bay, we've been bullied into surrendering other people's Constitutional rights. That's the start of the slippery slope towards surrendering our own.

Gitmo Detainees to have access to American Courts

Reverse_Vampyr has written an angry post railing against the Supreme Court's decision to give the 270 remaining detainees in Guantanamo Bay access to US Courts so they can challenge their detainment.

I totally disagree with him - this is LONG overdue. Terrorists or not, the idea of holding men indefinitely, without any charges being brought against them, is quite simply disgusting.

It is repellent to everything the American nation and constitution stand for. Just look at the Bill of Rights, which declares that nobody can be 'deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law' and demands the 'the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury.'

The standard Conservative argument is that these detainees are not American citizens and aren't on American soil - and therefore aren't protected by the US Constitution. That's just an offensively twisted defence. America stands for something - freedom and liberty and justice.

If American troops and American tax payer's money is going to be used to operate a detention facility, it must do so under the umbrella of American laws and ideals. Semantics and spin doctoring aside, Guantanamo Bay is effectively US soil. Therefore, the rules of American society should hold authority there.

The other argument Conservatives make is that 'these detainees are terrorists!'

Well, that's not entirely true. It took two years for him to be released, but one of the 'terrorists' was a 13 year old boy who was released back to his 'country of origin' with no charges being brought against him. He wasn't a terrorist. Logically, not all of the other detainees are, either.

It should be straightforward enough to find out. Hold a trial! Present evidence! Charge these men with something - it doesn't even need to be that convincing. At least abide by the rule of law. Don't just lock them up for half a decade.

That sort of behaviour's more in keeping with the dictatorships America opposes - certainly not appropriate for 'The Land of the Free.'

The fact is, George Bush has gone on television hundreds of times touting the American way of the life and American values. It's entirely hypocritical to claim our society is inherently better than those we oppose when we behave in a manner just as despicable as theirs.

'Homeland security' is one thing - we want our families and nation to be safe. But if that safety comes at the expense of surrendering the basic 'inalienable rights' our forefathers fought and died for, perhaps this nation's not really worth keeping secure.

By holding ourselves to higher moral and legal standards than our enemies, we make ourselves more vulnerable - but I believe that vulnerability is worth living with, to defend something much more important. The founding principles of the American nation.

In the words of Justice Anthony Kennedy: "The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times."

Once again, I leave the final word to The Great America, Thomas Jefferson:

"The Habeas Corpus secures every man here, alien or citizen, against everything which is not law, whatever shape it may assume." Thomas Jefferson to A. H. Rowan, 1798

"I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution." Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Paine, 1789.