Some Thoughts On Gitmo

sweet stutefish, nicely thought out and presented.

My issue with Gitmo has always been that it's a black box... stuff goes in but doesn't go out. I believe (though I have no links to back this up, I'll work on it) that even US terrorists (i.e. citizens of the US who are believed to be terrorists) are detained at Gitmo as well. If that is in fact true, then we get into an issue where the line between POW and the Criminal Justice system becomes blurred.

I think we need to work on opening up the process a bit more. If they're POWs, lets classify them as such... also, if POWs are to be detained until the end of the conflict, how are we defining such an end? Are they prisoners of the nebulous War on Terror? Looking back on history and at the rules we have established for war, we see that all the rules and practices are based on a few very simple assumptions. That we have a very clearly defined enemy, and we have a clearly defined and identifyable goal.

WWII:
Enemy - Hitler and the Axis Powers
Goal - Remove Hitler from power, beat back the Axis nations and reestablish the status quo

War on Terror:
Enemy - Terrorists (we have a few names, but in general we're attacking an ideology more than a specific person or even a specific group)
Goal - Um... safeguard against terrorism? This isn't a goal in the traditional sense, but a sort of ongoing process that never ends.

The POW issue gets a lot more complicated as we stray further and further from what we understand war to be, as the nature of conflict changes so drastically. For Afghanistan prisoners... isn't that conflict largely over now? They had elections and all that... doesn't that mean that particular conflict is over? If it is, why are we still holding them?

My point here is that there are so many unanswered questions... so many things are changing that we can't get a proper grasp on it. Gitmo is going to become increasingly important in the minds of Americans and people the world over, but not over issues of human rights abuses or whatever, but for what it represents as an example of how world conflict has changed, how the old rules may not apply anymore and the fear that accompanies such uncertainty.

I believe (though I have no links to back this up, I'll work on it) that even US terrorists (i.e. citizens of the US who are believed to be terrorists) are detained at Gitmo as well. If that is in fact true, then we get into an issue where the line between POW and the Criminal Justice system becomes blurred.

That is not true.  They are charged and tried for treason.  Remember Johnny Bin Walker?

Like I said, I wasn't sure if it was true and was going to work on finding something to back the statement up.

But it was a minor (and side) point to the comment in general. For the sake of this discussion, I'm going to treat Gitmo as a POW camp entirely.

You're right, Zoomba, the question of POWs does get complicated.

I fully agree that it will be difficult to determine when the "war on terror" is over. But since it doesn't seem to be over quite yet, I'm comfortable saying we probably don't have to work out right now exactly when to release POWs.

But okay, fine. When would you recommend releasing terrorist POWs? (Note: I'm assuming that at least some of the Gitmo detainees really are legitimate terrorist POWs.) Victory on a single battlefield (for example, "Afghanistan") doesn't mean the war is over. It doesn't do anybody any good if an Iranian terrorist, trained at an Al Qaeda camp in Pakistan and captured in Afghanistan, is released to blow up Iraqi policemen because Afghanistan "is largely over now".

As far as U.S. citizens go, here's how I see it: If you were captured by the military on a battlefield, while participating in enemy activities, then you're a POW. Citizenship is irrelevant to the military (even our own soldiers are not required to be citizens).

It would interest me very greatly if U.S. citizens, arrested by U.S. law enforcement authorities within our borders, were being transferred out of our criminal justice system into the custody of the military.

The war on terror poses a lot of problems not addressed by our modern concept of "conventional" warfare. One major problem is that when people choose to fight using terrorist tactics, they are choosing a strategy that relies heavily on using the civilian population as dummies, decoys, shields, and useful idiots.

If you're a terrorist, I would fight you wherever I found you. But if I find you hiding behind women and children, what then? If I do not fight you, you will destroy all I hold dear. If I do fight you, it will be me that destroys all I hold dear. And while I'm struggling with this dilemma, you're whispering lies into the ears of your human shields. You're telling them that whatever happens to them,, it will be my fault, not yours. What then?

Anyway, people have been released from Gitmo. Don't you remember all the articles about ex-detainees relating the most lurid tales of torture at the detention center?

I don't think the line between POWs and Criminals is all that blurry. I think there are a lot of cases in which you could make a reasonable argument for either approach. But that doesn't mean the line is blurry. In most of these cases, the obvious course of action is the simplest one: stick them in a detention center for a while, until experience and full consideration have produced a better long-term policy for dealing with POWs in the new age.

I've been unable to locate the story that originally prompted me to make the US Citizens in Gitmo claim... So I formally retract it. I was wrong.

On the issue of releasing POWs.
Yes, it's very hard to define when the conflict is over, it's hard to determine "victory" but because of this vagueness we have to be increasingly dilligent in making sure this gray area isn't abused. I don't pretend to have the answers to any of the questions posed by this new situation... I don't think anyone does, and that's the part that bothers me so much. We can't just continue on in this land of no clear rules or direction.

Unceartainty breeds both fear and abuse. It's too easy to go and do something really bad and then come back and say "Well, we don't have any rules to handle this..." when caught. We need to do the right thing from the outset if we can.

Agreed: We should do the right thing from the outset, if we can.

A lot of times, the right thing isn't apparent at the outset. Sometimes, it takes extensive study and experience--and trial-and-error--to figure out what the right thing is in a new situation.

On top of that, large and complex institutions like the U.S. military change very slowly. I think this is generally a good thing. I think that in the case of POWs, it's generally a safe interim policy for the military to simply continue with its current methods of dealing with POWs. I think it would be extremely counter-productive to begin dismantling the current system when we have no idea what to replace it with, or how well our new system (which we don't even have, yet) will work.

Also, America being a democracy, the "war on terror" ends when we citizens say it ends. We'll make our decision known most likely over a period of some years, populating the Legislature with politicians who reflect our views and culminating with the election of a President comitted to ending the war. At that point, the American people being what we are, the public outcry for the release of the remaining POWs will be great, and our government will act accordingly.

I expect that there are two things that go on in a camp such as Guantanamo Bay: One, Prisoners of War are detained in accordance with the humanitarian standards laid out in the Geneva Convention and in published military doctrine. Ironically, since World War Two at least, compliance with the humanitarian standards of the Geneva Convention means that the host country invests more in the well-being of its prisoners than it invests in the well-being of its own troops.

Two, Prisoners of War are interrogated by military personnel, to learn any useful tactical or strategic knowledge they might have. I assume the interrogations will range in severity from gentle to harsh; that they will use a mixture of public, commonly accepted techniques and secret, brutal techniques; and that they will have mixed results--some interrogations will yield useful information with little effort, and some will result in excessive torture to no good effect.

For all of this, except the secret torture techniques, there are already many oversight and public access resources. There's Congressional oversight. There's the military's own internal inspectors and standards committees. There's the Red Cross, which has been inspecting Gitmo regularly.

I'm not sure how much more visibility into POW camps you want, or can reasonably expect to get.

Obviously, the military isn't going to reveal all of its interrogation techniques, nor is it going to reveal much of the information it learns from interrogating POWs. As a private citizen, there's not much you can do to audit those things, without grievously jeopardizing the very security your military has set out to preserve.

Instead, you must rely oin certain elected officials and their appointees, who are trusted with our nation's secrets, and who report to us (honestly, we hope) on the status of secrets we should not want them to reveal.

I admit, this isn't a great system, but it's about the best one we have: All other methods would either put the secret power more firmly in the hands of unelected officials over whom we have no authority at all, or else reveal all our strengths and weaknesses to the very people from wh'm we're trying to keep secrets in the first place.

Gitmo is NOT a prisoner of war camp because of the forms of torture they employ. It is no different from any devious regime who use torture as a policy. If Gitmo didn't have any forms of torture, then it could be labelled a pow camp. And if it were solely a pow camp, why have so many people from different countries been allowed to leave since there was no evidence they should have been detained in the first place? You make the wrong assumption in thinking the inmates there are all captured terrorists, or captured after military engagements. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sadly, the US policy is to pay off and/or outsource the dangerous dirty jobs to those who can do it for them, namely the regional warlords in Afghanistan. With a monetary price gained for every 'terrorist suspect' they hand in, it quickly led to sweeping nets of men who were labelled suspected terrorists. Now, if the US would have simply waited to pay the warlords until AFTER the suspect was declared a terrorist, all the innocent incarcerations would have withered away. So like it or not, your support for the US-Led torture prison makes a laughing mockery of the things some like to pretend to export, like freedoms and basic democracies. Think about what Bush was saying about Hussein before the illegal invasion. That he 'tortured his own people' and he tortured people who didn't share his political and religious beliefs'. Now it's the same torture only now it's run by the Americans. Imagine my shocked realization. The cradle of civilization is now being occupied by young scared pimple-faced cannon fodder who murder entire families and who bomb and kill babies being held in their mother's arms. Shameful.

Reiki: You really need to find a new mantra. Or at least come up with some proof.
I think the Nazis are calling you home... run to them... go...
(This is probably the closest you'll ever see me to trolling on this site)

Reiki, a corporation whose top executives embezzle corporate funds is still a corporation. Likewise, a POW camp where prohibited interrogation techniques are practiced is still a POW camp. In any case, the utilitarian and moral arguments about torture and interrogation is probably big enough for a separate set of articles.

Your allegations about how the prisoners were taken make a very good point, if true. But that point is undermined by your earlier claim that "so many people from different countries [have] been allowed to leave since there was no evidence they should have been detained in the first place". This seems to directly support my impression that the camp actually works, and that the military is actually willing to investigate and release detainees that they cannot justify holding on to.

I find it interesting that Zoomba and I are acknowledging how hard it is to get solid information about what's really going on at Guantanamo Bay, but you are speaking as if you have full and correct knowledge of these things. Would you mind sharing your sources with us?

Finally, it seems like every day for over a year now, I've heard some story in the news about how terrorists in Iraq are killing policemen, politicians, worshippers in mosques, children on school buses, and foreign aid workers. Terrorists have a published policy of brutally murdering civilians in order to influence events. They carry out this policy in public, with pride, every single day. Your fantasy of a similar secret U.S. policy, is disgusting. Either write a well-researched article detailing the reality of this policy, or drop it.

#8 by Reiki-House Tuesday, June 14, 2005

You're absolutely right RH! Don't worry about those other guys. We don't need to worry about stuff like sources or evidence, do we? We know it's all true! That's good enough, and they should believe it too without bothering with all that stupid "sources" stuff.

Keep up the good work RH! Don't let them side track you with all that talk of evidence and other unnecessary rubbish.

The world was perfect before Bush, and it will be perfect again!!!

#8 by Reiki-House Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Yet "another" JU nut case!

The problem with the war on terror is, it may fall in the boundaries of countries, but it isn't agaisnt the government or military of any specific country. For those who call for the Geneva Convention to apply, guess what, by its own by-laws, it can't. The Geneva Convention specifically omits combatants who aren't uniformed soldiers who represent the military or govenment of a nation. The reason for the ommision in the first place was that Geneva had no interest in protecting mercenaries or getting involved in purely "civil" conflicts.

As we know, many of those shooting at our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are not members of any countries military. They have merely travelled to those countries to engage in the fight for whatever reason they may have. They are mercenaries at best.

The prison at Gitmo houses people who are engaging in a war against the U.S. Coalition. Of course, they are going to complain about their treatment. Of course the treatment that they are getting is less than desireable, but guess what folks, it is also more than they are guarenteed by international law, The Geneva Convention or any other treaty.

They complain that the Qur'an isn't handled properly... guess what, the fact that our government is supplying them with their scriptures is going above and beyond what can be expected for them.

This is a war of idiology. Not of religion, or of nation. We are fighting for our right to not be terrorized by those who have decided that we have no right to exist.

Being a war of idiology, part of the battlefield is public opinion. The enemy knows full well that the U.S. has a terrible track record in that department. Make it hurt and the U.S. will pack up and leave. So, plant a few stories a week in the press about how terrible the U.S. is behaving. Convince a few spineless politicians that this war is unwinable. Pay enough people to protest that the rest who are against the war will join in.

"By Any Means Possible" is nothing more than a Bumber Sticker phrase to most Americans. To those we fight against, it is a way of life. These are people that would praise you for your activism in their name one minute, then rape your daughter and put the film on the internet the next.

To give in to their rhetoric is to take a bullet for their cause.

I'll tell you what. Compare what they get at Gitmo for meals to what our "own" kids get for lunch at school on the "school lunch program". The prisoners eat better.

Like I said, I wasn't sure if it was true and was going to work on finding something to back the statement up. But it was a minor (and side) point to the comment in general. For the sake of this discussion, I'm going to treat Gitmo as a POW camp entirely.

Acording to the GC, it is a spy camp.  Enemy combatants, not in uniform.

Being a war of idiology, part of the battlefield is public opinion. The enemy knows full well that the U.S. has a terrible track record in that department. Make it hurt and the U.S. will pack up and leave. So, plant a few stories a week in the press about how terrible the U.S. is behaving. Convince a few spineless politicians that this war is unwinable. Pay enough people to protest that the rest who are against the war will join in.

Ted, you hit the nail directly on the head there! This is a war of thought, not a war of boundaries, leaders or nations. We are fighting an "idea" which is the most dangerous fight possible.

It's dangerous for a number of reasons:
1. If you can't define it clearly enough, you can't easily designate what is and what isn't a part of the conflict. Since terrorists are waging war on our freedom through propaganda and lies, many consider people speaking out against the US Govt to be in league with terrorism, to be traitors by trying to subvert the American public. Is it an act of terrorism to speak out against the government now? WIll it be soon if we don't work to define the conflict?

2. You can't fight an unconventional war by conventional means, it makes the situation worse. Invasion, while a useful tool in the conventional war to eliminate opposing forces creates more of a problem than it solves when fighting a battle like this. The terrorist propaganda includes claims of American Imperialsm, when we invade we reenforce that point and drive people on the fence towards the terrorist cause.

3. It is going to be impossible to sustain support for fighting a war on a concept. A lot of people have commented that the public just isn't as supportive of this war as they were of World War II. The problem here is that the average American can't look at a map and point to the country we're fighting. They can't really identify a person or set of people who if we take them out we will win. We struck Afghanistan while the iron was hot following 9/11, and there was pretty solid support for that (yes, there were libs out there crying and tearing their hair out, but they were pretty few in number). Iraq was even given a pass largely due to how little time had still passed since the attacks. Americans were still really angry and wanted a target to hit. Now, we took Iraq, Bin Laden is in hiding and we haven't heard too much from him recently and nothing has been blown up in almost 4 years. Over time we forget, over time our tempers cool, and over time we just want to go back to living our lives. You can't expect indefinite support for a cause that is so ill-defined. The danger here exists when the government continues to push the war past the point of public acceptance.

Gitmo, like I said earlier, is the physical manifestation of this confusion, of this lack of definition and direction. We have combatants and terrorists being held there, but we're not sure what to do with them. We're not sure when this will be over, or if it will ever be over period. It stands to represent the transition to an age and attitude that honestly most people aren't all that comfortable with. We like answers, we like to know that wars end, we like to be able to declare victory and then move on. We're not sure if that's possible anymore.

Reiki: You really need to find a new mantra. Or at least come up with some proof. I think the Nazis are calling you home... run to them... go... (This is probably the closest you'll ever see me to trolling on this site)

You got to hand it to Herr Haus.  The right claim he is a loony liberal, and the left claim he is a right wing Nazi.  He is equally despised by both sides!

Zoomba, some good points you made there, however, if you remember, they brought the fight to us, we merely (and finally) returned fire.

We can sit around and take terrorist attacks for the rest of our existence, or we can turn and start to make terrorism a very expensive way to do business.

We were sitting ducks long enough. Now it's time for them to DIE!

Since noone here seems terribly well versed in international law, a short refresher course:

POWs are POWs of a specific war against a specific country, and this administration has never claimed that the detainees at gitmo are POWs for precisely this reason, well that, and POW status requires regular ICRC visits.

The grey area that everyone here seems to think the prisoners fall into because of this new and totally unprecedented type of war is actually spelled out quite clearly by the Geneva Conventions. They are illegal combatants, fighting without formal affiliation to any army, or so this administration claims. The resolution to this is that an international tribunal is to hear the cases of each prisoner to whom we wish to attach this label and adjudicate their status either as POWs or as illegal combatants. Of course, all of this is academic as the present administration, as well as most of this country, is ill disposed towards international venues at the moment.

If we want to discuss this situation within the confines of our legal obligations under Geneva, these are the terms. If you don't like these terms, the first argument that must be made is why and how we are to abandon the very laws of war we helped to write. So far as I can see, the present laws would work just fine, had we an administration amenable to the kind of process transparency required for them to work.

"The resolution to this is that an international tribunal is to hear the cases of each prisoner to whom we wish to attach this label and adjudicate their status either as POWs or as illegal combatants."

What would we then do with the ones labeled as illegal combatants? And who would form the international tribunal?

It would interest me very greatly if U.S. citizens, arrested by U.S. law enforcement authorities within our borders, were being transferred out of our criminal justice system into the custody of the military.

try googling 'jose padilla'

kingbee, I have Googled "jose padilla". Here's the summary of Padilla's story, accorting to Google's top search result:

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On June 9, 2002 Jose Padilla--a.k.a. Abdullah Al Muhajir--was transferred from control of the U.S. Department of Justice to military control. Since that time, Padilla has been held in a navy brig in South Carolina.

Padilla has not been charged with a crime, and does not have access to a lawyer in his detention. This is a clear violation of the 5th Amendment, and probably a violation of the 6th Amendment. It is also a clearly abominable violation of the democratic traditions of the United States.

Padilla has been accused of plotting heinous acts of terrorism, particularly the setting off of a "dirty bomb". He has been accused of conspiring with members of al-Queda, and planning to scout for that terrorist organization, using the benefits of his U.S. citizenship. President Bush has designated Padilla an "enemy combatant".

These are frightening accusations, and they may be true. Accusations do not give the President the authority to lock someone away, however. According to the laws and traditions of the U.S., the way to determine who gets imprisoned is through the due process of a trial by jury.

Jose Padilla may be a traitor and a terrorist. But he was not captured in Afghanistan with a gun in his hand. He was arrested at Chicago O'Hare airport. If Jose Padilla can be held without criminal charges, strictly on the say-so of the President, then any American can be. That is tyranny. We must put an end to it.

It is essential that Padilla be either freed or charged with a crime.

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The site also quotes the Fifth Amendment:

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No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

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Obviously, several legal minds both at the Department of Justice and at the Department of Defense agreed that the President's actions were perfectly legal. So either the Conspiracy is at hand, or there are other legalities at work here--including, possibly, the lawful authority of the President to designate a U.S. citizen as an enemy combatant. This website is convinced the President doesn't have such authority. The President is convinced otherwise.

In any dispute between the Internet and the President of the United States, I'm inclined to give the President the benefit of the doubt. However, what could be the legal basis for detaining Padilla as a POW? I will continue to investigate.

Awesome. I wish more people would actually copy & paste info like that instead of just telling us to google something. Keeps us all on the same page.

In any dispute between the Internet and the President of the United States, I'm inclined to give the President the benefit of the doubt. However, what could be the legal basis for detaining Padilla as a POW? I will continue to investigate

Let us know if you turn up anything interesting as I don't quite agree with your stance on giving the president the benefit of the doubt