O, The Irony

It's sad and horrible, but there's something laugh out-loud funny about the headline "Military Taking a Tougher Line With Detainees". You heard that right, it's no more Mr. Nice Indefinite Detention Without Trial in Gitmo. "They’re all terrorists; they're all enemy combatants,” says the facility's commander, Rear Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr, though, as the article points out, many of the detainees have, in fact, been cleared for release. Your chilling Orwellian line of the day is "Guantánamo’s focus was shifting from interrogations to the long-term detention of men who, for the most part, would never be charged with any crime."

Yes, yes. The long-term detention of men who will never be charged with a crime and who there's no intelligence value in questioning. They're just going to be detained. Forever, apparently. And now it's time for a tougher line. Conservative hero Augusto Pinochet, unless I'm mistaken, just went in for extra-judicial killing when he decided he was through with torturing someone, so perhaps this is progress?

Comments

When I read the headline, I simply became afraid and could not read on. I know I should read on, but I cannot. What is happened to America? Thank you, Matthew.

Posted by Jennifer | December 16, 2006 9:51 PM

This is one of the most depressing stories I've seen in a while. But I guess a more useful response would be to get angry.

Posted by Kenneth Almquist | December 16, 2006 11:18 PM

Jennifer, I don't want to be unpleasant, but these trends have been in place for a long time.
Read about exemplary Americans like Amherst, Polk, and the Roosevelts. Read in depth, not just the standard-issue iconography..
This administartion is committing increasingly sickening outrages, but they follow the curve of American moral debasement. The people of the USA have not yet acknowledged their nation's plunge into depravity. We can hope that some day they will see it, and will act.
Chile hit a bottom and bounced back. Perhaps we can do so as well.

Posted by pcqst | December 16, 2006 11:19 PM

Personally, I'd rather the bullet in the back of the head to the permanent, life-long, torturous detainment.

Posted by MDtoMN | December 16, 2006 11:20 PM

Weird, I heard Halliburton just got a contract for a couple thousand iron masks.

Posted by anonymous | December 16, 2006 11:57 PM

pcqst writes: Jennifer, I don't want to be unpleasant, but these trends have been in place for a long time.

Read about exemplary Americans like Amherst, Polk, and the Roosevelts. Read in depth, not just the standard-issue iconography.

As usual, the phrase "I don't want to be unpleasant" is followed by the speaker taking obvious pleasure in being unpleasant.

This is the absolutely classic lefty superiority dance, and while it's only a small part of the problem, it's still part of the problem.

Commenter Jennifer is expressing entirely appropriate upset and moral outrage. For this, commenter "pcqst" grabs the opportunity to spank her for not having done so earlier.

Are we interested in getting people to agree with us, or are we interested in expressing our superiority to the people who came to our views later than we did? "pcqst"'s preference is clear.

Posted by Patrick Nielsen Hayden | December 17, 2006 12:01 AM

America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!

How's that for a "Lefty Superiority Dance!"

Pull your head out, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, so I can administer the spanking properly.

Posted by Yanqui Mike | December 17, 2006 12:19 AM

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't think Matthew is being fair in his characterization of the article. If the sources quoted in the story are to be believed -- and that's a big assumption, I'll grant you -- we're not getting tough with the same prison population as before. Indeed, "the tougher approach reflect[s] the changing nature of the prison population," one in which detainees who really are not suspected of terrorist activities have been released, leaving what prison officials imply is a population of hard-core terrorists. And for that more hardened, dangerous group, the prison officials have decided a tougher approach is necessary.

Don't misunderstand. I'm not suggesting the new policy is a good idea or that the officials should be taken at their word (indeed, given the Administration's track record, I'd say there are good reasons to doubt whether the Gitmo population has really changed). I just don't think Matthew is really addressing the heart of the article.

Posted by Daniel, Esq. | December 17, 2006 12:34 AM

The long-term detention of men who will never be charged with a crime

They are prisoners of war (technically, the equivalent for nonlawful combatants). POWs don't get charged with a crime, and we are etitled to hold them until the end of the war. That's straightforward international law.

I don't get what is so difficult for the left to understand about that. The left is suppoed to be in favor of international law. Yet here we are, in a stragihtforward application of international law, and the left refuses to acknowledge it.

Posted by Al | December 17, 2006 12:40 AM

International law does not provide for the unilateral declaration of non-uniformed persons as prisoners of war. Non-uniformed combatants are partisans or guerillas and may be subject to summary execution on the field of battle; non-uniformed non-combatants are civilians who used to at least receive some consideration.
Luckily we have the second coming of Bush in power, who has reserved the kingly power to declare any poor chump sold to brigands for thousands of Yanqui dollars as "enemy combatants" under our ill-defined, defiled system of justice. Under Mullah Al's fatwah, however, they are to be isolated and subjected to torture and abuse for the perverted pleasures of the self-designated moral majority. Mullah Al says they hate us for our freedom, so the fastest way to end the war on terror is to eliminate our freedoms as quickly as possible. Mullah Al may be rooming with Abdel Rahman soon, but I think it is worth it to preserve some vague sense of security, since it won't be my happy ass in the can (just The Pet Goat).

Posted by Al Huffs Paint | December 17, 2006 12:52 AM

They are not prisoners of war. The President and his administration fought very hard to make sure they would not be classified as POWs, because then they'd be required to comply with all the geneva conventions, such as free access by the Red Cross/Red Crescent.
How do you determine the end of a war on an abstract noun anyway?

Can enemy combatants in the War on Drugs, or the War on Poverty, or the War on Illiteracy also be held indefinitely without trial?

Posted by Matt | December 17, 2006 12:59 AM

On re-reading, I can see how PN Hayden found my earlier post ripe for mockery. I was naively trying to express the view that the US government has a long history of committing outrages, and the current crop should be viewed in that context.
I'm not sure where I indulged in "spanking" or "superiority dancing", but they sound like fun and I look forward to future opportunities.

Posted by pcqst | December 17, 2006 1:20 AM

Interesting that this news should surface when there are new filings challenging the farcical Maverick McCain "compromise" legislation on detainee procedures. See SCOTUSblog.

Posted by StJoe | December 17, 2006 1:55 AM

"Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't think Matthew is being fair in his characterization of the article. If the sources quoted in the story are to be believed -- and that's a big assumption, I'll grant you -- we're not getting tough with the same prison population as before. Indeed, "the tougher approach reflect[s] the changing nature of the prison population," one in which detainees who really are not suspected of terrorist activities have been released, leaving what prison officials imply is a population of hard-core terrorists. And for that more hardened, dangerous group, the prison officials have decided a tougher approach is necessary."

Dude, they were all terrorists, remember? The President said so. That's why they didn't need rights or trials to determine if they were really guilty, and anyone who suggested otherwise cared more about the rights of terrorists than about protecting Americans. The guilty terrorists who are being released, well they must have seen the light, kissed the cross and saluted the flag or something. Proof that advanced interrogation works.

Posted by aleks | December 17, 2006 2:52 AM

It's amazing how Al's talking points all collapse under their own weight.

Posted by Reality Man | December 17, 2006 3:19 AM

Good to know there a folks like Al who believe being in the wrong country at the wrong time is justification for indefinite imprisonment, abuse, torture and murder.

FYI, International Law has a few things to say about countries who torture their POWs. Hint: they're against it.

Posted by faux facsimile | December 17, 2006 9:20 AM

Al, you might take a look at the Parhat v. Gates filing.

The idea that the population has changed in any material way is silly. Since the early fall of 2004, 14 new prisoners have arrived at the prison. And, as the story has it, they're apparently completely segregated from the others. The story really jumps over the reasons for the end of cooperation in August 2005, but one can't blame that on the hunger strike from September 2005 to January 2006.

Some people have gone home, to be sure, but that's not solely a function of 'dangerousness' but maybe has more to do with nationality of the prisoners, and the political needs of their governments and ours. Compare the number of Yemenis who've gone home with the number of Saudis: you can't tell me that the Saudis are that much less dangerous. Compare European citizens who've gone home with people who are resident aliens of European countries. Adm. Harris' talk of changing prisoner population depends entirely on the myth that releases are driven by how dangerous the prisoner is, not by his value in diplomatic coin. You can also look at the timing for the get-tough approach, and compare it to releases, and you'll find a damn thin relationship.

Now it may well be that the government learned something from the incidents in Camp IV in the late spring: that the modest 'privileges' accorded the most compliant quarter of the prisoner population is not a material mitigation of lawless, endless incarceration. Letting men bunk together doesn't blind them to the fact that they're being held without trial. Until such time as the US gets bored with them (or can get something good in exchange for them).

Posted by CharleyCarp | December 17, 2006 9:55 AM

I wonder why we're preventing them from committing suicide. We aren't punishing them since we're unsure if they've actually done anything. (A paid snitch turned up these people. Or they were swept up in mass arrests. We're holding these people in blind hope that they know something and will tell us. It's insane.)

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | December 17, 2006 10:57 AM

Whenever Harry J. Harris is interviewed -- the last time I saw him was on Ted Koppel's Discovery special -- he says something that confirms him as a first class blockheaded cunt who deserves plenty of the treatment he considers appropriate for his charges.

He's supposedly an improvement on Geoff D. Ripper, the man who took torture from Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib. Lord forbid.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | December 17, 2006 12:21 PM

What about organizing lethal pit fights, or having them fed to lions? It could be a prime time show on Fox!

Posted by Julian Elson | December 17, 2006 4:14 PM