Everyone Agrees: But About What?

Per Ambinder, Hillary Clinton says "If we had actionable intelligence that Osama bin Laden or other high-value targets were in Pakistan I would ensure that they were targeted and killed or captured" while Edwards says "My belief is that we have a responsibility to find bin Laden and al Qaeda wherever they operate. I think we need to maximize pressure on Musharraf and the Pakistani government. If they can't do the job, then we have to do it."

I hope this'll be the last we hear of this issue, though fear that it may somehow become a staple of ever-more-fine-grained questions. The more you think about it, though, the more this just seems like a totally pointless hypothetical. If you had a situation where you had firm intelligence that a key al-Qaeda target could be taken out with a discrete special forces mission or a well-placed missile, the Pakistani government would no doubt give the okay. Conversely, posturing aside, nobody's going to send a giant invasion force into the Pakistani mountains contrary to the will of the government. Bringing this scenario up in the first place was a pretty silly gambit on Obama's part (what if Osama was on the Moon? in New Brunswick?), though it arguably worked. Anyways, for The Guardian what I found more important about Obama's speech.

Comments

You try to get an OK from the Pakistani govt - some unknown ISI person who is a bin Laden fan sends him a warning, and bin Laden gets away. This is not a pointless hypothetical.

Posted by Arun | August 2, 2007 12:05 AM

a key al-Qaeda target could be taken out with a discrete special forces mission

What the hell does this mean? The operation that Rumsfeld cancelled two years ago was a "discrete special forces mission" involving hundreds of special forces troops.

Posted by Al | August 2, 2007 12:54 AM

"You try to get an OK from the Pakistani govt - some unknown ISI person who is a bin Laden fan sends him a warning, and bin Laden gets away. This is not a pointless hypothetical."

Presumably, the cross talk should be between Musharraf, who Bush would need an OK from to begin with, and President Bush. The Pakistani intelligence services shouldn't be in on the deal until it's too late (Unless Mushy's a total idiot-or unless Mushy's the fan). Besides, Osama probably doesn't have too many close friends in Musharraf's government anyway-every person who can effectively communicate with Osama's organization is a potential threat to his safety. While I am sure he has many sympathizers even within the government, he isn't going to be able to tell in some straightforward way who he can trust. His ability to hide depends in large part on making the kind of communication you suggest pretty damn close to impossible.

As for killing Bin Laden, I can see why this emerges as the politically useful position of Obama, but I don't really see what it gets us in real terms. I think he should be captured, tried and convicted, and then put on a farm somewhere safe and secret (I wish this had happened to Saddam Hussein too, by the way). Every six months or so we can shoot a video out there showing him tending his garden, and living his last years in peace and tranquility. Killing him just sets his martyrdom into stone-it would almost be better to never find him. And it would set a precedent for bad people everywhere, to know that if they put down the rifle and surrender, they can retire from a life filled with the constant fear of getting assassinated. Not as satisfying as execution, I know, but I think the long term benefits would outweigh the cheap satisfaction of the death penalty.

Posted by Gordon Lightfoot | August 2, 2007 1:21 AM

Obama's speech was terrible. Even though there were some OK "touchy feely" items that supposedly showcases a nuanced defense policy, it's clear that "Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan" is the message he wanted you to hear. He mentioned Pakistan 14 times - how much more transparent can he be? Worse, he talked about taking troops out of Iraq and moving them East because "the Afghanistan and Pakistan battefield" are more important. The Pakistan battlefield? US soldiers needed for it? What a fool.

The facts are simple. If Obama really thinks we're going to send troops into Pakistan without Musharraf's support, the Pakistan military, the Bhutto faction, and the main ISlamist opposition then that's it's viewed as an act of war and a guaranted power struggle inside Pakistan. Love or hate Pakistan, they're a sovereign nation, and you can't send troops into a sovereign nation without repercussions.

Not only Hillary called his Pakistan saber-rattling "another instance of irresponsibility", "non-rubberstamp" Senator Chris Dodd characterized his remarks as "very dangerous and irresponsible speech that may provoke a nuclear power."

And while clearly, it's doubtful that he's going to invade Pakistan, this just smacks of Obama talking tough when everyone knows he wants to give his lunch money to the bullies. This is the guy that thinks FISA works wonderfully, wants to close down GITMO, give all terrorists rights under our Constitution equivalen, and try them under the UCMJ if a civilian US court and all appeals somehow rules there is proof that they are soldiers. Otherwise, Obama wants civilian trials or just let them go to a country of their choice.

And people are supposed to believe that this moral redeemer of all liberal guilt who was talking about bringing all the troops home will instead start a war with Pakistan to get a few terrorists? He won't. This was just Obama or his foreign policy brains thinking this would show the Commander in Chief qualities of Obama and highlight his brilliance in foreign policy that Obama credits with living overseas 4 years as a kid and having Muslim relatives.

It didn't.

Obama needs new foreign policy and national security/military advisors - fast. He's a fish out of water on national security and diplomacy between powers.

Posted by Chris Ford | August 2, 2007 1:50 AM

"And while clearly, it's doubtful that he's going to invade Pakistan, this just smacks of Obama talking tough when everyone knows he wants to give his lunch money to the bullies. This is the guy that thinks FISA works wonderfully, wants to close down GITMO, give all terrorists rights under our Constitution equivalen, and try them under the UCMJ if a civilian US court and all appeals somehow rules there is proof that they are soldiers. Otherwise, Obama wants civilian trials or just let them go to a country of their choice."

I'm sort of, oh I don't know, at a total loss regarding what the "enlightened" approach to the adjudication of justice in matters regarding terrorism would be. Especially when, and I know this is going to sound shocking, there are GITMO detainees who are completely innocent, at least in the legal sense of the term. The convenient assumption of many a GITMO enthusiast is that all those guys are bad people in there. If that were really true, then perhaps thinking of Guantanamo Bay as a convenient sinkhole for terrorist whackos whose day in court need never come would make sense. But that isn't true. So we are left with the awkward fact that we are indefinitely detaining a large number of people who deserve to be at home with their families instead of rotting in the jail cells we put them in. In short, we are perpetuating an injustice. And perhaps some "steely-eyed realists" out there are willing to perpetuate that injustice in the name of national security. Fine. I don't think you can make a calculation regarding the risks associated with releasing them, but if you want to go and speculate that freeing the GITMO detainees will result in the collapse of our glorious republic, I suppose I cannot stop you. However, for a large number of reasonable people, the well known fact that we have imprisoned many innocent people goads on our consciences, as it should. Some of us even speculate that the act of imprisoning the innocent may have more blowback in terms of inspiring terrorism than would ever be affected by the number of dangerous prisoners we have locked up were they freed. That, I admit, is a speculation no more solidly grounded than the notion that we are protecting ourselves by keeping them in prison, so that puts us at something of an impasse, does it not? I say, maintain Guantanamo and it will put us at greater risk, you say shut down Guantanamo and it will put us at greater risk. Perhaps we are both right. However, my position does not involve the perpetuation of injustice and yours does. In this world of uncertainty, where it is increasingly difficult to distinguish between imaginary threats and real ones, I would humbly suggest that we guide our decisions not by what we are most afraid might happen, but by what we know in all fairness should be done.

Posted by Gordon Lightfoot | August 2, 2007 5:07 AM

Posted by Gordon Lightfoot | August 2, 2007 5:07 AM:"However, for a large number of reasonable people, the well known fact that we have imprisoned many innocent people goads on our consciences, as it should. Some of us even speculate that the act of imprisoning the innocent may have more blowback in terms of inspiring terrorism than would ever be affected by the number of dangerous prisoners we have locked up were they freed."

I agree with you on the whole conscience thing up to a point. However there is no obvious reason why this ought to inspire more terrorism, or at least the reasons why it does are more complex. The world is full of terrorists who were or are in Guantanamo who would prefer, on the whole, to remain in Cuba than to go home. We all know why this is - America, even at its worst, is better than Russia or Egypt or China. So America is merely trending towards World-norms here. Why would that inspire more terrorism? Egypt's prisons are not a major cause for concern. Nor are Iran's. Indeed the prisoners of Abu Ghraib protested and begged America not to leave them in the hands of their fellow Iraqis. Rather it is that to much of the Left and the Islamists, America can do no right. So Guantanamo is irrelevant - if China was running the prison no one would care. It merely serves as a cause to beat America with. If it did not exist they would find something else. It is not possible for Gitmo in and of itself to cause any Blowback at all. Those that hate the West will find cause.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6242891.stm

Posted by Gordon Lightfoot | August 2, 2007 5:07 AM:"However, my position does not involve the perpetuation of injustice and yours does."

That is by no means certain. What is the alternative to Guantanamo? The most likely and obvious solution is to leave them in the hands of the Afghanistan government. Who will torture and execute them all without much trouble. What you are demanding is not less injustice, and quite possible more, but rather than your hands are seen to be clean. You are demanding deniability. Not a lack of injustice. What else can be done with them?

Posted by HeiGou | August 2, 2007 6:26 AM

Matthew,

Your points are fine. Your LAT piece is pretty shrill though and has a kind of snippy fussiness about it that makes you look childish. Even if you're right having a little snit in print is not convincing.

Posted by zimmerman | August 2, 2007 7:52 AM

Several important points that Obama did NOT make:

1) The most efficient way to deal with a covert enemy is to get the local population on your side --if not sympathetic then at least neutral.
Then said population will drop a dime on the terrorists -- on where they are hiding. Then your
attack teams dive in and grab the enemy.

If the local population is sympathetic to your efforts, they will call you. Even if they are neutral, they will call you if you offer rewards.

Just look at how quickly Saddam was dragged out of a spider hole on an obscure farm.

2) But Al Qaeda has NOT been dealt with in that matter. It prospers because George Bush has done everything he could to make the Islamic World hate us.

In part, that's because George could not acknowledge the Islamic world's legitimate grievances against the the US government -- the decades long looting of Middle Eastern oil deposits via support of dictatorships in UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia. The support for Israeli aggression --given Ariel Sharon F16 fighter jets so that Sharon could bomb civilian apartment houses in Gaza.

3) But I think it's also clear that George does NOT want to capture Bin Laden.

Because Bin Laden and the "war on Terror" provides an excuse to do so many useful things.

Shift hundreds of $Billions from the Social Security Trust Fund to the shareholders of Big Defense,for example.

Deploy US troops from Europe to bases in Central Asia in order to support Chevron's grab of Caspian Sea oil , for example. How much did Dick Cheney preach about the joys of democracy to the dictators in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan when he was over there while CEO of Halliburton? How much recently?

4) So Obama's biggest argument is that the billionaires behind Big Oil, Big Defense, and the Israel Lobby have been wasting our Treasure -- and our Blood -- for their own purposes.

That EVIL corruption is why the worlds most powerful nuclear superpower has been enduring such misery the past 7 years.

Meanwhile, the leadership of China watches and snickers. And grow ever stronger and more prosperous.

Posted by Don Williams | August 2, 2007 8:32 AM

it's clear that "Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan" is the message he wanted you to hear. He mentioned Pakistan 14 times - how much more transparent can he be?

I counted 13, most of them within the space of a few paragraphs that happened to deal with Pakistan. He also mentioned Afghanistan 14 times, Iraq 24 times, Al Qaeda 20 times, and either terror, terrorism or terror 46 times. So I don't think the idea that Pakistan was the message he wanted us to hear stands up.

The speech was about global terrorism, and how to deal with it, and the Pakistan portion is presented entirely in context of that issue, as one important place where some terrorists happen to be.

Frankly, I don't see how what he said about Pakistan reflects any change at all in current US policy, going back to the 90's. He said:

If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will.

So here's one thing I'd like to know. Suppose at any time prior to the speech yesterday, a reporter asked Clinton, Dodd, McCain or Biden the following question:

If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets in Pakistan, and President Musharraf won't act, will you act?

What do you think their answer would have been?

Posted by Dan Kervick | August 2, 2007 8:37 AM

If you want to do anything meaningful about the terrorism that threatens the US, you have to figure out Afghanistan, and that then draws in Pakistan as well. Obama is exactly right to emphasize Pakistan.

I strongly recommend The Glasshouse for a liberal, clued-in Pakistani point-of-view.

Posted by Arun | August 2, 2007 8:41 AM

Presumably, the cross talk should be between Musharraf, who Bush would need an OK from to begin with, and President Bush. The Pakistani intelligence services shouldn't be in on the deal until it's too late (Unless Mushy's a total idiot-or unless Mushy's the fan). Besides, Osama probably doesn't have too many close friends in Musharraf's government anyway-every person who can effectively communicate with Osama's organization is a potential threat to his safety.

I suggest it is difficult for a Head of State to talk to another H.o.S. without people around them knowing it.

I also suggest that warning Osama does not have to be a direct contact or that the person has to know where Osama is. A general broadcast, for instance, would suffice.

-----

A quote from The Glasshouse, emphasis added:

But how can a commando general carry out such a U-turn without losing face, especially when he is being publicly backed by the White House? A secretary of state with vision -- a James Baker or a Madeleine Albright -- could have recognized that Musharraf's time was up. Instead, we have Rice and Boucher and Cheney, who -- just as in Iraq -- can only reinforce a failed policy. Washington is doing itself no favors by serving as Musharraf's enabler. Indeed, the Bush administration's policy of sticking by Musharraf is fast becoming eerily reminiscent of the Carter administration's policy of sticking by the shah of Iran.

Posted by Arun | August 2, 2007 8:46 AM

Obama's plan to reinforce the forces in Afghanistan and not leave till Afghanistan is stable is the right one.

http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2006/11/2167985

November 2006.
(emphasis added).

Perhaps even more troubling, Pakistan doubts the staying power of the U.S. in the region. Grare states flatly that, the claims of President Bush notwithstanding, "Pakistan is also preparing options in case the United States departs. ... [It is] convinced that history will repeat itself and that the United States will sooner or later leave the region."

The withdrawal of U.S. troops and the increasing role of NATO are interpreted as evidence that the end is coming: and "[o]nce the Americans are gone, NATO determination will fade and Afghanistan will be left to itself."

Pakistan's toleration of Taliban elements represents, among other things, a strategic hedge against the day that the U.S. again loses interest in Afghanistan. "There is an open campaign by Pakistan against Afghanistan and the presence of coalition troops here," President Karzai claims, a view echoed by British Gen. David Richards, head of the NATO force in southern Afghanistan.

Posted by Arun | August 2, 2007 8:53 AM

What do you think their answer would have been?

You're absolutely right about that, Dan Kervik. Clinton or any of the others would have said the same thing Obama did. WHich is not to say they'd have *acted* the same way if the situation arose, just that every politician knows that for electoral purposes they must make clear that American security, when it comes down to it, is more important to them than scruples about a foreign nation's sovereignty. It's posturing; they all do it; and Obama was doing it in this case. What's important is whether he means it -- if he'd *actually* act as he says he would in that situation -- but we have no real way of knowing that.

Now as for this from HeiGou:

The world is full of terrorists who were or are in Guantanamo who would prefer, on the whole, to remain in Cuba than to go home. ... What is the alternative to Guantanamo? The most likely and obvious solution is to leave them in the hands of the Afghanistan government. Who will torture and execute them all without much trouble.

You show a remarkable capacity to ignore Gordon Lightfoot's central point: that in many cases we're *not talking about terrorists at all*. In those cases the alternative should not be handing them over to someone else for torture, it should be *letting them go free*. If they won't be safe in Afghanistan (or whatever country they're from), we should set them up wherever they want. We're talking about the *innocent* here. Now obviously determining *who* is innocent is the real challenge, but in so far as you admit that some of them *are* innocent -- a fact which you seem to admit but then immediately set aside -- it's inhuman to pretend you can resolve the moral outrage for which the U.S. government is responsible simply by saying, 'well, they should just be glad they weren't detained unjustly by some worse country'.

Guantanamo is irrelevant - if China was running the prison no one would care. It merely serves as a cause to beat America with.

That is utterly moronic. First, there are plenty of Americans who do care about Chinese prisons. But that's not the most important point. Americans have good reason, and should never apologize, for being more concerned and vigilant about what their own government does than about others. Why? Because such concerns are not just humanitarian -- they're also self-interested. A government that's willing to deny previously recognized rights to foreigners may be justly suspected of being willing to deny previously recognized rights to its own citizens. (Cases like Padilla make clear such a suspicion is well-grounded. And yes, I know he wasn't at Gitmo.) Not to mention, frankly, I don't care much about China's image in the world. I care about the U.S. image in the world, because I live here and would prefer not to see it attacked. Gitmo hurts that image. You may say:

Those that hate the West will find cause.

and you may be right, but what about all those who don't yet "hate the West", those who are on the fence? Those whose views are still malleable? It sounds to me like you're perfectly happy to see America help to fertilize another generation of terrorists.

Posted by Ryan | August 2, 2007 9:31 AM

Call me crazy, but I think Obama sounds like the sanest candidate out there when it comes to foreign policy.

We should not be in Iraq. We should have a stronger presence in Afghanistan. If the Pakistan government is unwilling or unable to ferret out bin Laden, we should be willing to send troops into the country - with or without their consent. It's a hypothetical but at this point, all the candidates can respond to are hypotheticals.

Closing Gitmo is more of a symbolic gesture than anything, and I'm on the fence on it. I do think that when we engage in torture and rendition, we cede the moral high grind, harm our reputation among more moderate Muslims, and ultimately create more terrorists than we stop. I also think it's indisputable that at least some of the terror suspects in Gitmo and elsewhere are completely innocent, and it's unconscionable to me that the United States would essentially kidnap and torture foreign citizens with little or no evidence, hold them in secret prisons for months or years, and then dump them roadside when it's clear they don't know anything.

The other presidential candidates, particularly those on the GOP side of the aisle, are falling all over themselves, trying to varnish their "tough on terror" credentials by supporting the same old failed policies. The war in Iraq, torture, rendition, etc. are a pet rock.

I like the fact that Obama doesn't play that game. I also like the fact that, unlike the White House and many of the other candidates, he doesn't show disdain for the Constitution. My neighborhood would be safer if the police could search the persons and homes of anyone they wanted with or without justification, but I wouldn't want to live in that kind of place. Likewise, I'd sooner tolerate another 9/11 than support a government that illegally spies on its citizens, detains and imprisons suspects indefinitely, and engages in torture.

My two cents.

Posted by Mike LeP | August 2, 2007 10:23 AM

Matt's right as policy the Pakistan gambit was pointless, but this was just pure "serious" politics.

Chirs Ford: it's clear that "Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan" is the message he wanted you to hear. He mentioned Pakistan 14 times - how much more transparent can he be? Worse, he talked about taking troops out of Iraq and moving them East because "the Afghanistan and Pakistan battefield" are more important. The Pakistan battlefield? US soldiers needed for it?

My emphasis, of course.

Add to that the widely reported fact that Obama's campaign was steering reporters to the Pakistan bit. It's clear Obama = Tough Guy, is the headline they wanted, they're just playing politics.

Posted by AJ | August 2, 2007 10:37 AM

GordonLightfoot - I'm sort of, oh I don't know, at a total loss regarding what the "enlightened" approach to the adjudication of justice in matters regarding terrorism would be. Especially when, and I know this is going to sound shocking, there are GITMO detainees who are completely innocent, at least in the legal sense of the term.

You would be amazed how many dedicated Nazi soldiers we had in British and US prisons that were totally innocent!!!, at least in the legal sense of the term. Even if they had killed piles of Soviets, Poles, Frenchmen, Brits, even Americans. 99.9% of the POWs never had trials. Those in the 0.1% that did, for criminal acts, had trials at the end of the war.

The convenient assumption of many a GITMO enthusiast is that all those guys are bad people in there. If that were really true, then perhaps thinking of Guantanamo Bay as a convenient sinkhole for terrorist whackos whose day in court need never come would make sense. But that isn't true.

No, in all our wars we kept a mixture of drafrtees, volunteers, true war criminals behind barbed wire. Not because we spent tens of billions adjudicating the 800,000 POWs the Western Powers had in captivity and either had been judged guilty or awaiting their sacred right as Nazis under the US & British Constitutions to speedy trials - but because they were dangerous, and if released back to their German homes and family, would try doing their duty and killing us.

So we are left with the awkward fact that we are indefinitely detaining a large number of people who deserve to be at home with their families instead of rotting in the jail cells we put them in.

Awww, geeee, thats just awful! Imagine how you would have felt as an innocent Nazi draftee, British Redcoat captured at Trenton, a brave Japanese sub survivor, NVA brigade caught by 1st Cav - all who had no trial, no battalions of ACLU lawyers trying to fight for them, deserving to be home with their families before going back to duty picking up a rifle and killing US troops again. Instead we had them rotting in jail cells!!! Starting with George Washington and Ben Franklin - those bastards! Along with all the covil-liberties denying Canadians and Brits of WWII. Monsters! Especially since we later allowed many of the Brit, Jap, Nazi prisoners to return to America and become citizens!

However, my position does not involve the perpetuation of injustice and yours does.

No, your position mutton-headedly insists that no different legal realities exist with an armed enemy at war with us, and a criminal. Our guys out there whacking Jihadis without a jury and judge and court appeals process involved in M-16 death sentences but also offering Quarter to captured radical Muslims - do not consider themselves criminals. Neither do the Jihadis sanctioned by God and the words of the Prophet Himself to kill unbelievers wherever possible and offer prisoners No Quarter. No Jihadi considers themselves criminal - they are doing the highest of Islamic religious obligation - the only guaranteed path to Paradise the Holy Qur'an specifies exists in their dying performing Jihad and butchery of unbelievers, heretics, apostates.
Not one Jihadi terrorist considers themselves criminal in any way, nor do their 300 million supporters of the 1.3 billion in the Ummah. Rapes and plunder incidental to Jihad, like in Darfur, are not considered criminal. Indeed, Muslim drug and theft gangs in the West are blessed by Mullahs. Who hold that their activities are not considered crimes in the eyes of Allah as long as a portion of the earnings are used to advance Jihad..But the same radical Islamists hold all infidels who do similar ARE criminals since the Qur'an does not excuse their activities as sanctioned. And the same radical Islamists will quickly admit to the existence of criminality in any act barred by Sharia or secular law against Muslims in good standing, against proper Dhimmis who obey as conquered people, and even infidels & apostates when no Jihad or religiously binding Fatwa exists.

Ryan - It sounds to me like you're perfectly happy to see America help to fertilize another generation of terrorists.

Only an anti-American narcissist ignorant of history blames America for 1400 years of off and on Islamic terror. Islam, or the Salafist/Wahabbist interpretation of it, is all the fertilizer needed. AQ, and 59 other combat arms of radical Islamic ideology active in the 20th century(also known as the Islamic terror and Jihad groups) existed without America as a cause. The slaughter of Christians, animists, pagans, Jews by the various lethal agents of radical Islam in just the 20th century is some 8 million, just behind the Communists, Nazis, and Japanese militarist's killing machine in Asia...

In that 8 million perspective, AQ is a an absolute piker compared to GIA, the Brotherhood, Jumma al-Kashmir, Jumma al-Laskir, JI, Abu Sayaff, Ganjaweed that worked the bloody borders of Islam long before. All along Islam's internal fault lines, need to exterminate orcleanse out Christians that settled during the colonialist centuries, on all it's borders from Morocco to East Timor.

Dr. Ayaman al-Zawahiri proposed taking elements of the 85 year old Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood he was part of and merging some of the transnationalists in the Brotherhood with the most fanatic Wahabbists in Yemen and KSA to create the Al Qaeda offshoot.

All AQ did was take Jihad out of the traditional slaughter zones of the Ummah and bring it to West Europe and the USA.

Posted by Chris Ford | August 2, 2007 11:06 AM

Chris Ford: "Only an anti-American narcissist ignorant of history blames America for 1400 years of off and on Islamic terror. Islam, or the Salafist/Wahabbist interpretation of it, is all the fertilizer needed"
-----------

Gee, I wonder why all those Jews fled into the Islamic World to escape the Christian Inquisition in Spain. I thought they were supposed to be smarter than that.

What happened? Did the crafty Muslims falsely claim a new Deli had opened up in Constantiople and was having a 50% off sale on Lox?

(Note to Ford: If you are going to spread David Horowitz's bullshit, you might want to check it against reality. Like ,you know, read HISTORY if you are going to toss out phrases like "1400 years of off and on Islamic terror". )

Posted by Don Williams | August 2, 2007 2:29 PM

CORRECTION to the above post: I meant to say
"Note to Ford: If you are going to spread SAM HARRIS' bullshit"

Sorry for the mistake, but they all look alike to me.

Posted by Don Williams | August 2, 2007 2:57 PM

Oh, I forgot.

Be sure to update the history books to say that the Crusades were occasions on which Islamic religious fanatics invaded England and laid seige to London.

Posted by Don Williams | August 2, 2007 2:59 PM

Don,

Nice one. Don't forget Ford's offhand mention that the U.S. took Brits as POWs in WWII, which was something I hadn't heard before.

Meanwhile he's still avoiding the fact that we're talking about actually innocent people at Gitmo -- not innocent in the sense that POWs are immune from prosecution because soldiers are allowed to kill soldiers, or innocent in the sense that (some) radical Islamic doctrine doesn't consider what we would call terrorism to be a crime. We're talking about people who had no part in attacks on anyone -- random people scooped up in the vicinity of a battlefield, individuals handed over to the Americans by Northern Alliance folks seeking a bounty or to settle old scores, children forcibly inducted and made to carry equipment, etc.

These cases are a moral blight on the U.S., which I think was Lightfoot's point. But the administration shows no interest in sorting them out. Unless, of course, Dick Cheney wants to toss the Australian P.M., an ally, some free positive press -- then you'll see some movement on a case.

Posted by Ryan | August 2, 2007 3:05 PM

The whole idea that we are "at war" with terrorism is idiotic on its face, and imagining that Guantanamo Bay is a POW camp is stupid. The US military would love to be in a real war with a real army, because, you know what? That's what it was designed to deal with. Instead of that, they've been sent to foreign streets "looking for terrorists." They don't speak the native tongues, they can't distinguish between friends and foes on the ground, and pretty soon, to them, every dude between the ages of 15 and 50 looks like a threat. So they round everyone up that looks suspicious whenever anything goes down, throw 'em in a paddy wagon and ship them off to Cuba. We can't be too angry at our friends in uniform for this, because they were given the impossible task of scouring a foreign country clean of an ill-defined entity that right-wing reactionaries call "terrorists" while frothing at the mouth and imagining thousands of bin Laden clones marching through the desert.

I promise you that there weren't a significant number of noncombatants in any of our WWII POW camps. The prisoners we captured then understood the rules of warfare and were just glad that we captured them rather than killed them. They were wearing clearly identifiable uniforms, and a large number of them voluntarily surrendered. This situation is simply different from the situation presented to many GITMO detainees, some of whom were sleeping in their own beds when GIs stormed their houses, beat them into submission and dragged them away while their families sobbed. I'm not making this up. A lot of these guys had nothing to do with anything, but had the great misfortune of having made an enemy of some "informant" who the military foolishly relied on to provide them with information regarding major "terrorist" personalities. And what you are saying, Mr. Ford, is that it is totally okay for us to bust into the home of an innocent man in a foreign country and drag him away to a detention facility on an island in the opposite hemisphere from where he lived and keep him there for all of time (since, as we all know, the "War on Terror" is without end). Not only are you saying that it's okay for us to do this, but that we have no reason to suppose doing this might inspire the kind of anti-American hatred that tends to lead to increases in Quaeda recruitment, because as we all know, islamic extremists are utterly incapable of rational thought, do not make sensible decisions, have no feelings save anger and hate, and can barely breath in-between their perpetual cries for the destruction of the West.

I don't understand why it's so hard for people to see that the decision to occupy a foreign country and imprison, and sometimes torture, and quite frequently kill its citizens, might result in a little resentment from the people there. There is something really psychotic about a country that sends in the machinery of death, and while we're hacking away relatively indiscriminately at the populace, we say "relax, we're doing this for your own good!" And then we're astonished that the people we are trying to "help" take issue with what we are doing. Can you imagine that? Why do they hate us? Not noble, good America, that great bastion of liberty!

And maybe this is what we have to do. It doesn't make any sense to me, but perhaps some wiser human than I can explain in sensible terms how killing people in foreign countries helps secure us. Even if we concede that this is somehow the case, that still doesn't lend aid and support to the fantasy that somehow everything we do to achieve this aim is innately good. It isn't. It's a bloody mess down there, and it's a mess we made. Owning up to that fact doesn't constitute "hating America." It just constitutes acknowledging the situation for what it is.

Posted by Gordon Lightfoot | August 2, 2007 6:42 PM