[T]he reality of Guantánamo Bay has been all but ignored or forgotten.
Today, most of the detainees are housed in new buildings modeled after civilian prisons in Indiana and Michigan. Detainees receive three culturally appropriate meals a day. Each has a copy of the Koran. Guards maintain respectful silence during Islam’s five daily prayer periods, and medical care is provided by the same practitioners who treat American service members.
Critics liken Guantánamo Bay to Soviet gulags, but reality does not match their hyperbole.
Some imply that if a defendant does not get a trial that looks like Martha Stewart’s and ends like O. J. Simpson’s, then military commissions are flawed. They are mistaken. The Constitution does not extend to alien unlawful enemy combatants. They are entitled to protections under the Geneva Conventions...
The facts show the current alternative is worth keeping.
The facts show the current alternative is worth keeping.
Morris D. Davis, a colonel in the Air Force, is the chief prosecutor in the Defense Department’s Office of Military Commissions.
[New York Times]
11 comments:
Bravo, it sounds great! Now let Morris D. Davis and anyone who supports this view send their kids to Summer Camp Gitmo. Any takers? But you will get to pray and eat and get free medical care (as pointed out by Michael Moore!) You may not get to sleep, maybe for a few weeks, because that has been identified as a way to "help" you recall that you are an enemy conbatant, even if you didn't believe you were one when your unlimited incarceration started. This camp will keep the kids out of your hair for, well, longer than the summer. How long? Who can say, that is up to George W. For many of you, that is a good thing. He claims to be a moral man, and to the best of our knowledge has been sober, and not driving into bushes, for sometime. But then, his kids don't go to camp in Gitmo. They can usually be found using their fake ID's in the Big City. Maybe sometime in camp would do them good.
Dear Larry,
Your comment reminds me how much i like to read your material. You have a poignant writing style that i've missed.
Your perspective invokes the contrast between approaching terror warriors as criminals verses soldiers. i tend to favor the later view as the criminal justice system appears ill equipped to deal with terrorists.
When you say terror warriors are you referring to those who have been tried and convicted, those who were seen cavorting with other known terrorists, those with Muslim last names, those who were going to the grocery store and got picked up on the way, or just those who look kind of suspicious (you know - the Arabic looking kind)? By the way, you are kind of swarthy,aren't you? I find that rather suspicious :)
I kind of miss Due Process, don't you?
Dear eme,
You employ a criminal justice model and apply those principles [due process, etc] to the jihad problem. We can ill afford to wait for a jihadist to commit criminal act/s before taking decisive action. A military engagement approach is more likely to protect our children.
Thankx for noticing that i am swarthy.
Your response to eme belies one of the fundamental problems of the preemptive ambitions of the George W. administration. If you could be sure who is who and what will be done, in theory this could be an acceptable option. But we cannot know. It is not okay to imprison many innocents because they are Muslim, and "maybe" jihadists. Becuase he gets away with it, it is why this President has slowly eroded many of America's great freedoms from our fellow Americans. In theory, wiretapping, watching the internet, and otherwise watching your free citizens might accomplish something, but as we have seen, having intelligence reports that say Osama bin Laden is targeting our airliners did not help this administration, so I do not think giving up our forefathers intended civil liberties will do much better. Not in America, not with these possible terrorists. Yes, it is true, if we imprison all the Muslims of the world, we will wipe out the majority of terrorism, but not all of it. However, despite the most ambitious agendas of George W., that is not going to be accomplished, nor of course, should it. Trampling on other peoples rights, and acting like we can do whatever we want, is just recruiting more terrorists.
But civil liberties imply responsibilities.
We should not be offering such liberties to those who seek to destroy our open way of life.
You are correct that it is not always easy to dissern who is the enemy, but I'm willing to trust my government: those who remain in Guantánamo Bay are likely to be quite dangerous. Would you leave a child of yours with those charmers?
A criminal justice model? Are you referring to the Constitution? I can't believe we live in a country where we debate whether or not human rights only applies to Americans. You're model of dealing with "jihadists" presupposes that you have only captured the guilty. How, pray tell, have you come to that conclusion?
Bush's pro-active stance has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Iraqi civilians. What possible moral justification can there be for such blatant disregard for human life?
Not offer civil liberties to those who seek to destroy our way of life? You do not know these people are guilty, and it is your government that is destroying your way of life by eroding your civil liberties. This inane government is playing right into the hands of the terrorists by maniacally spying and imprisoning anyone it "thinks" (and in the case of this administration I use the term---thinks---SOO LOOSELY) might be dangerous. Leave your kids with these charmers? I wouldn't leave adults with George W.! He has been responsible for thousands of American children's deaths. And when others in our government seek to get our children home, he stands in their way, so he can continue this Jihadist breeding ground and training camp he formed in Iraq. The only thing I trust this government to do, is continue to support tax policies favored by the top 1% and to continue to allow Halliburton to take on contracts illegally throughout the world.
On what do you base your trust in your government? Is it the lies, the fabrications, the signing statements, the cronyism that cost lives, the value placed on loyalty to the president without regard to the public good, the dual system of laws in which the higher ups are exempt from that which the common people are subject to, the test of political affiliation applied to those who aspire to be federal prosecutors, or the assigning of contracts to those affiliated with the administration? I wouldn't trust my offspring to those in Guantanamo bay. I also wouldn't trust my child to those in the White House. There aren't many people at all I would trust my child to. But having proven themselves, over and over again, to be self serving liars, I see no one in the Bush administration worthy of any benefit of the doubt.
Dear eme,
President Bush may be the top banana, but the government is made up of many folks, some of them quite competent. George doesn't run Gitmo or decide who is dangerous.
Dear Larry,
We are only bound to offer due process to US citizens.
George decided the policies and use of Gitmo as well as the guidelines for who to round up.
Dear Bruce,
This President has been eroding Due process and our other civil liberties for Americans for several years now. How he chooses to treat other nation's citizens just goes to show his ethnocentric demagoguery and why he has created a more dangerous world then when he entered his Presidency. Please don't make me remind everyone that is was 8 years between attacks on the World Trade Center. Saying George W. kept us safe for the last 6 years, is a lot like me saying my car keys kept us safe for those years. Both were around and all, but still.... In the case of many foiled minor plots during that time, I will agree that there are many other players involved in day to day security.
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