home

Rumsfeld Rejects Guantánamo Reform

By TChris, Section War on Terror
Posted on Sat Feb 18, 2006 at 09:32:19 AM EST
Tags: (all tags)
Share This: Digg! StumbleUpon del.icio.us reddit reddit

by TChris

The United Nations Human Rights Commission advocated the closure of the Guantánamo prison in a report issued this week. Today, a NY Times editorial blasts the Bush administration's refusal to recognize the damage that Guantánamo does to the nation's credibility as a protector of human rights.

The Bush administration offered its usual weak response, that President Bush has decided there is a permanent state of war that puts him above the law. And that is exactly the problem: by creating Guantánamo outside the legal system for prisoners who, according to Mr. Bush, have no rights, the United States is stuck holding these 500 men in perpetuity. The handful who may be guilty of heinous crimes can never be tried in a real court because of their illegal detentions. A vast majority did nothing or were guilty only of fighting on a battlefield, but the administration refuses to sort them out.

And the editorial reminds us that accountability has been erased from this administration's vocabulary.

All are a reminder that the Bush administration has yet to account for what happened at Abu Ghraib. No political appointee has been punished for the policies that led to the atrocities. Indeed, most have been rewarded.

While the administration is predictably defensive about the UN Commission's report (as well as newly released photos from Abu Ghraib), it's stubborn response, delivered by Donald Rumsfeld, is equally predictable: the report is "flat wrong," all is well, we're protecting you from terrorists who will kill you if we release them. Relying on fear as a substitute for due process, the administration appears to be expanding Guantánamo instead of closing it. Feeling safe yet?

< Friday Funnies | Cheney is the Real Victim >

  • The Online Magazine with Liberal coverage of crime-related political and injustice news

  • Contribute To TalkLeft


    • Display: Sort:
    Rumsfeld Rejects Guantánamo Reform | 22 comments (22 topical)
    Re: Rumsfeld Rejects Guantánamo Reform (none / 0) (#1)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Feb 18, 2006 at 10:10:09 AM EST
    "We have several hundred terrorists _ bad people, people that if let back out on the field would try to kill Americans. That's just a fact." Oh, for sweetfannyadam's sake (profanity elided). Rumsfeld is lying. According to his own department's data, over half of the Guantanamo Bay prisoners "are not determined to have committed any hostile acts against the United States or its coalition allies." Is there anyone in the media with the guts to ask Rumsfeld why he's lying like this?

    Re: Rumsfeld Rejects Guantánamo Reform (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Feb 18, 2006 at 10:15:56 AM EST
    In the past, illegal combatants tended to be summarily executed. Of course, TChris and TL are as befuddled by the concept of illegal combatants as they are by the concept of illegal aliens. Here, let me help: here's a definition of the term illegal. You two might want to study it until it sinks in.

    Re: Rumsfeld Rejects Guantánamo Reform (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Feb 18, 2006 at 10:30:03 AM EST
    James R: In the past, illegal combatants tended to be summarily executed. What does this have to do with the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay? Here, let me help: here's a definition of the term illegal. You two might want to study it until it sinks in. Ah. Illegal: not according to or authorized by law. As in the practice of holding prisoners of war in Guantanamo Bay without the protection of the Geneva Convention to which they are entitled.

    Re: Rumsfeld Rejects Guantánamo Reform (none / 0) (#4)
    by Al on Sat Feb 18, 2006 at 11:24:39 AM EST
    Once again, JR drops the meme "In the past, illegal combatants tended to be summarily executed" as if it were self-evident truth. So, JR, let's hear it: What are you talking about?

    Re: Rumsfeld Rejects Guantánamo Reform (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Feb 18, 2006 at 12:37:02 PM EST
    Also JR is just dropping in the meme that the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay are illegal combatants. Yet for most of them, that's simply not true: a majority aren't even combatants, and no competent tribunal has been held to show that the tiny minority who were taken in on the field of battle are in fact not PoWs. Until such a competent tribunal has been held for each prisoner, it is illegal for the US to treat the prisoner as anything but a Prisoner of War.

    Re: Rumsfeld Rejects Guantánamo Reform (none / 0) (#6)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Feb 18, 2006 at 12:37:04 PM EST
    1) Illegal combatants don't get Geneva Convention protections 2) The Conventions are reciprocal - and if you think that the enemy is abiding by them, let me stop to laugh 3) Any combatant who is not in uniform (or identifiable as a combatant due to some other marking) is an illegal combatant. A WWII example would be German soldiers attired in captured American uniforms in order to commit acts of sabotage (Battle of the Bulge). When captured, they were summarily shot. No detention, no prisoner camp, zip. That dates back to before the adoption of the Geneva protocols as well - during the US Civil war, prisoners were (with exceptions, such as Andersonville) treated well, and quite often paroled. However, raiders out of uniform were typically executed when captured. The whole idea that combatants should be identifiable is for the protection of civilians. If combatants look like civilians, then massacres are far more likely - soldiers, after being burned by people who look like civilians will start to take a hostile view toward any and all civilians, on grounds that are easily understandable.

    Re: Rumsfeld Rejects Guantánamo Reform (none / 0) (#7)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Feb 18, 2006 at 12:39:53 PM EST
    As to the lack of tribunals - the military was ready to run them years ago. The left protested, under the asinine idea that people captured on foreign battlefields deserved criminal trials. That delayed the entire process while that got argued out. When you wonder why some of these people are still stuck there, you might examine two things: 1) The Quixote like quest to afford them criminal trials 2) The recidivism rate of those who have been released.

    Re: Rumsfeld Rejects Guantánamo Reform (none / 0) (