Brits and Gitmo

All,

The British House of Commons foreign affairs committee released a formal statement urging all MPs to make their opposition to Guantanamo “loud and public.” They also agreed with many both here and abroad who have concluded that Gitmo is severely hurting the US war on terror. (Every day these things are in the papers and the conversations around the world in the Saudi equivalent of Podunk, Nebraska.)

Prime Minister Tony Blair apparently was not willing to join in: he merely reiterated his former stance. What was that, you might ask? (1) Gitmo is an “anomaly.” (2) It should be closed. Don’t forget: Britain is our closest ally in the war on terror (aside from the Australians, though they are starting to act in such a manner that we may want to distance ourselves from them, rather than the other way around).

But when asked for a justification, Tony’s response is all too telling:

"I have said why I think Guantanamo is an anomaly and should come to an end. I also think, however, it is important that we never forget the context in which this has happened, which is the context of the war in Afghanistan and the reason for that was the slaughter of 3,000 innocent people on 11 September. Now, it is important of course that we pursue the action against terrorism, maintaining absolutely our commitment to proper civil liberties and human rights. But it's also important that we remember those people that died in that terrorist act and have some understanding therefore of the huge amount of anger there is in American over what happened there."

It makes me sad whenever I hear a politician invoke 9/11 in order to press their own view or to excuse something egregious, like suspension of habeas corpus (the ONLY right found in the body of the Constitution, as the Founders considered SO important and inalienable that it should not be subject to alteration by amendment) or torture or posse comitatus or spying on Americans (let’s see: that takes care of the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments, not to mention some trampling on the sections on the Separation of Powers…) or befriending countries with atrocious human rights violations and other political crimes (how did we become bedfellows with Musharraf and Pakistan?)… etc. (Again, that list just off the top of my head.) This invocation makes me sad, not only because it does a terrible disservice to those folks who did die that day (by turning legitimate grief into political leverage), but, more importantly, because it is totally and utterly specious. It has nothing to do with anything involving legality, politics, jurisprudence, constitutional law, etc., etc., etc. It is simply an attempt (quite successful at this point, I might add) to play on the emotions of the populace, who may not understand the problems with the following argument: “How dare you refuse to vote for the Patriot Act? How dare you look in the face of the families of those who died on 9/11? How dare you all but ask the terrorists to attack again, while you’re pissing on the smoking ruins of the Towers?

But Tony had the guts to cut through all this smokescreen and to tell it like it is. Though he doesn’t agree with Gitmo, and though he doesn’t think that it is justified under any standing statutes in the international community of countries that believe in human rights, he wants to remind the British people of why it is that Gitmo exists. Because it is useful? Necessary? Legal? Important? Security? None of the above. Because America was so overcome with emotion and so incapable of making decisions except on the basis of that emotion. In other words, Gitmo has no rational basis; in order to understand its founding one must remember the irrational circumstances that led to its creation.

The subtext is left for others to discuss. Does this justify its continued existence? Of course not. But what do you do after you realize that you let your irrationality get away with you. What do you do when you realize that you have 450 guys who want to die because they are so miserable (“Death in this situation is better than being alive and staying here without hope,” Fawzi al-Odah, Kuwaiti who was force-fed through a tube shoved down throat through his nose when his hunger strike threatened to kill him), some of whom never picked up a gun in their lives but were just in the wrong place at the wrong time (Last I heard only about half the people at Gitmo ever fired a rifle, the camp included at least 13 kids until last year, when three who were 13-15 years old were apparently repatriated to their home countries), who now have spent 4 years in this prison 8000 miles from home? To put it another way, what will they do when you let them go? For those of you who know my father, I ask you this: if you put him in similar conditions for four years, would you EVER consider letting him go? The question would never arise as to whether he would be a future threat. The question would simply be a matter of accounting: how many scores of Americans do you think he would slaughter before getting himself killed in the process?

Thus, if we remember Tony’s comments, we’ve got 450 people who we through in a special type of prison because we were being quite irrational at the time, and we now don’t seem to have any recourse to let them go. The majority of them were either forced to fight against us in the first place or were not even involved (farmers, taxi drivers, peasants, minors have been identified as being very confused about the whole thing). However, now they are so desperate that somewhere between 60-80 of them have tried to commit suicide, some several times. So you’ve got a bunch of Muslims whose lives you have ruined, who are now ready to kill themselves, and whose only company over the last four years (aside from the guards) are fanatic violent twisted religious types. It sounds like a recipe: “How To Make A Suicide Bomber.”

Maybe this is the reason for Tony’s hesitation. It sounds like we shouldn’t ever release these people. After all, they may have been innocent when they showed up. But there’s a good chance we’ve turned them into ruthless psychotics by now.