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Shut It Down
Three enemy combatants killed themselves recently at Gitmo.
Sean Aqui has three words for our leaders: Shut It Down.
7 Responses to “Shut It Down”
I thought we were going to have military tribunals and kill these people? Guess not. Looks like Bush punked out. Wonder why? Could it have been…..pressure from our people and peoples of the world?
Could it be they don’t have enough evidence to actually try them?
Hrmmm….
Yeah, these guys are all innocent. Let’s let them go. Unless someone has a better idea?
What did they do in previous wars with prisoners? Hmmm…. says here none of those guys got tried either…. and it also says there was very little support for closing down the camps that held them! Wonder why that is? And apparently conditions in those camps were worse than Guantanamo Bay!
Well that’s strange! Given all that, why would anyone want to close Gitmo? Must be… political reasons not related to the function of the camp?????
Umm, Captain… in previous wars, the ones we fought against nations, it was pretty self-evident who was a proper prisoner and who wasn’t. And it was pretty easy to know when to release them; the peace treaty was usually a pretty good signal. Not exactly applicable here.
The Bush Administration loves to point out that this is a different type of “war” than we’ve ever fought before. They’re right… except it’s pretty clear that they only say this as an excuse to avoid questions about their execution of the war.
The real reason that it’s a different type of war is that everyone’s a volunteer; nobody is born or drafted into a terrorist organization. So every time we pick up an innocent bystander off the “battlefield” and call him an enemy combatant (and I’d love to see the evidence that everyone at Gtmo is a terrorist), we’ve turned a potential ally into a new recruit for the enemy. Not to mention his family and friends. With every mistaken POW, our enemies multiply. It’s that “hearts and minds” thing.
Obviously, taking no prisoners isn’t an option (whether you use the pacifist or warrior definition of “take no prisoners”). So we’ve got to have a way to sort out the innocent from the guilty (or even the probably-guilty), and we’ve got to make that transparent to the world. I’m disappointed (but not surprised) that the administration just doesn’t get that.
The best question/comment so far anywhere has been:
“After four years of isolation, or even six months of isolation…what “new” information could the prisoners at Gitmo tell even if they wished?”
God I hate to say this..but our government is doing the same thing to the never charged with a crime prisoners at Guantanamo and other prison sites…the same damned thing the Nazi’s did to the Jews, Poles, Dutch and others…and when something is wrong..its just plain wrong, no matter who commits the wrongful act.
I see only two options…
1. Charge them with crimes under U S Law as prisoners of war and as war criminals in Military Court, after trial and upon conviction put them in U S penitentaries.
or
2. If no criminal chages under ANY U S law can be found..turn them the hell loose and let them go home to their families.
What the hell ever happened to “innocent until proven guilty” in our nation, and guilty only after preferred charges, indictment, trial, and conviction?
Of all the U S Congressmen, Senator John McCain, that spent almost ten years as an isolated prisoner of war, he should be the first to depose and condemn what is happening to those people and the first to cite the two options above. Beyond those two options there are no gray areas.
Captain Carnage,
Please tell forgetful ole me what the Nurnberg/Tokyo Trials were all about. I can’t seem to remember anything about them cept that after the end of WW II, Japanese and Nazi war criminals were charged with war crimes under international law, indicted, given fair trials in U S led Military Courts and upon conviction were dealt fair and just punishments.
“Captain Carnage,
Please tell forgetful ole me what the Nurnberg/Tokyo Trials were all about. I can’t seem to remember anything about them cept that after the end of WW II, Japanese and Nazi war criminals were charged with war crimes under international law, indicted, given fair trials in U S led Military Courts and upon conviction were dealt fair and just punishments”
After the war. When they were not needed particularly for intell, when there was no threat of reprisal against witnesses, when intell sources on the Germans and Japanese were no longer needed, and so info could be freely made public in trial.
Personally, Im ok with letting most of the gitmo guys go. Most of them were cannon fodder types, and they’ll just end up being killed either in Afghanistan, or suicide bombing in KSA. So its not worth the hearts and minds cost to hold them.
But for folks like Khalid Sheik Muhammed, we probably are not yet at a point where we can try them, and we certainly cant release them.