Brian Beutler observes that the administration seems to be doing its best to ensure that a certain number of exonerated people don't manage to get out of military custody at Gitmo or elsewhere. Could the reason be that "the administration is hampering the process so that some of these don't someday describe the torture techniques used against them to a lawyer or a judge or the media"? That's the kind of irresponsible speculation you'll only find on a blog, but it's much needed speculation, considering the circumstances.
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No Exit
09 Aug 2007 12:12 pm
Comments (17)
Normally, I would agree that the administration is doing this for public relations reasons. But I think there is more to this. It is quite possible that the administration believes that these people may become a danger once they are released. The reason is obvious: when you torture people, they are likely to become your enemies even if they weren't your enemies before you tortured them. And who could blame them?
Is it irresponsible to speculate? It would be irresponsible not to.
Actually, this is not only not irresponsible, but not really all that speculative. From the New Yorker's "black sites" story:
The Bush Administration has gone to great lengths to keep secret the treatment of the hundred or so “high-value detainees”...The utter isolation of these detainees has been described as essential to America’s national security. The Justice Department argued this point explicitly last November, in the case of a Baltimore-area resident named Majid Khan, who was held for more than three years by the C.I.A. Khan, the government said, had to be prohibited from access to a lawyer specifically because he might describe the “alternative interrogation methods” that the agency had used when questioning him. These methods amounted to a state secret, the government argued, and disclosure of them could “reasonably be expected to cause extremely grave damage.”
So those people will have something different to say than all the other people who have been released and claim to have been tortured?
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1382033,00.html
How would what they say add to what has already been said. Why didn't the US government prevent their release? This isn't speculation its a lame conspiracy theory.
"But Obama got there first."
Really?
I remember Hillary last year arguing that we need to end the war in Iraq and send our soldiers to Afghanistan to hunt down Osama. Lots of other Dems have been making the same argument for a long time.
From the above link justifying "lame conspiracy theory" claim:
Stafford Smith [lawyer of the released Britons] has drawn up a 30-page report on the tortures which Begg and Belmar say they have endured, and sent it as an annexe with a letter to the Prime Minister which Downing Street received shortly before Christmas. For the time being - possibly forever - the report cannot be published, because the Americans claim that the torture allegations amount to descriptions of classified interrogation methods.
So some folks were released with very threatening gag orders and their lawyers were likewise gagged. Clearly, some seepage of the torture claim occured, but there is still a lot to hide and deny.
dave may ponder why Vanunu, an erstwhile employee of Israeli nuclear program is kept under draconian restrictions while prime minister more or less bragged about Israeli nuclear weapons -- Israel still have a lot of ambiguity to preserve and details to hide. The same applies with American use of torture. Among others, a veneer of deniability may be necessary to mantain cooperation of foreign law enforcement agencies who would be barred to do so in an unambigous situation.
They're being held at Gitmo because they're guilty. Otherwise, why else would they be there in the first place?
No one is innocent!
The core difference between the left and the right on Iraq is that the left doesn't believe we are at war. By doing so, they would have to acknowledge that extraordinary powers are granted and used in every war, even the ones that they believe were justified. This is no different.
Fred, your post is amusing in ways that I don't think you even realize. But yes, part of the difference is that Bush supporters have been conned into thinking that we are in a fight to the death with Islamic jihadists upon which the future of western civilization rests. What makes your post amusing though, is that the Bush team has decided the way to fight this war is, proverbially speaking, to just stab ourselves repeatedly.
To summarize: I don't think the effort to prevent terrorism is as desparate as you do. Secondly, I also believe that Bush has actually done tremendous damage to us in this effort- including the use of all these techniques.
Personally, I think they won't release these people b/c they're just mean-spirited.
extraordinary powers are granted and used in every war, even the ones that they believe were justified
Fred Jones, we didn't defeat the Nazis by torturing people. Even if we're fighting a Global War on Tactics, or a Clash of Civilizations with Islamohispanofascism, or a Generational Struggle Against Brown People We Don't Like, we don't need to be torturing people now, either. Our adherance to our own ideals is our strongest weapon.
extraordinary powers...
Basically, these powers are rarely granted and often exercised. At least, among civilized states.
And assuming that if you can do whatever you please if you have the ability to keep it secret does not per se make it a moot to discuss if you should do whatever you please.
Sorry, delete an "if" from the previous post. I could not decide which one ...
>Since they already have lawyers, the answer to the question would be: no.
>Posted by Al
Mr. Gonzales,
Izat you?
Thanks to commenter SDM above for saving me the trouble of posting the link to The New Yorker's black sites report.
Innocence or guilt is irrelevant when you talk about combatants. All the Jihadis believe they are not doing anything wrong or immoral, but actions their religion and maorality say will open the gates of Paradise for them. None characterized themselves as "criminal" or "innocent" except for the sake of using Western lawyers to exploit vulnerabilities in Western systems where courts meddle in war tactics.
The best you will get from a "moderate" Muslim is that the terrorists in some 60 major organizations might be "wrong-headed, brave people who misinterpret the Qu'ran." They know that these warriors are not killing infidels for their personal gain, acting on impulse out of danger, living in bad conditions without trying for wealth or luxury by means barred by Sharia Law.
Trying to force Jihadis and unlawful enemy combatants into a "you are morally wrong and law-breakers" template is folly. We executed 6 of 8 Nazi saboteurs in 1942. None was thought evil by nature, none broke any German laws. If they had succeeded in their missions and escaped to Mexico, they would have been considered by Germans and likely by us as we lauded German fighter aces so - as brave heroes.
But we legitimately executed them because they violated rules of war and had to pay a price. Just as several hundred other spies and infiltrators paid. We also held over 2 million Axis prisoners, including over 600 US citizens that had emigrated to Germany in the Depression, as prisoners behind barbed wire and machine guns. No 100s of billions of US taxpayer money to hire lawyers for Nazi or Jap military prisoners, no attempt at "exhonerations".
The criminal template just doesn't work with an enemy at war with you, except for ordinary military justice as applied to criminal acts by troops in the middle of the war, and a select few "war criminals".
rea - Fred Jones, we didn't defeat the Nazis by torturing people.
No, you conflate one common practice, weapon in war with the ability of it alone to win the war with no other tools and methods(interrogation, rifles, bombs, propoganda, logistics).
War is never fought or won that way. We do know that interrogations of the enemy, coerced interrogations - have happened in every war we and others have fought and they save lives. Enough so that every military deovotes resources and some of their best people to the practice of intelligence and interrogation. Have since before the time of Hammurabi and Sun Tzu.
rea - Even if we're fighting a Global War on Tactics, or a Clash of Civilizations with Islamohispanofascism, or a Generational Struggle Against Brown People We Don't Like, we don't need to be torturing people now, either.
Interrogating, not torturing, rea. And the enemy is the ideology of radical Islam, just as we opposed the totalitarian communist variety of Marxism as evil and did not waste time talking about one small band of communist terrorists amongst many others springing from that iseology as "the real threat".
rea - Our adherance to our own ideals is our strongest weapon.
Feel good crap. But still crap. Many a good, noble civilization fell to murderous barbarians and all their good, noble ideals died with them.
Warrior sagas are full of the easy-going pacifist people they encountered, pillaged, and exterminated. Tales of disgust as Muslims assigned to butcher "turn-the-other cheek" Christians in the Levant in the 700's talked of weak sheep who did not defend themselves. Of Maoris finding a remote island where the people had no weapons, had laws and ideals...the Maoris killed all but the attractive yound women, who they raped and took back as slaves.
All the laws and pacifist ideals has not stopped the ruthless Chicoms from conquering and demographically swarming over Tibet and it's lands to be the majority and masters of that once-nation...of peace and tranquility.
Noble ideals are fine and good and if working right, will produce men with the will to fight and kill as ruthlessly as the savages that confront them - in order to save what they believe is a better society than being lice-riddled Viking drunks or Muslims with all the women walking around like tents with eyeslits and any infidel condemned to a 2nd class existence...
They are the weapon, not the ideals. Far too many "sensitive" idealistic nations lacking the will to kill and "grill" the foe end up being put on the ash heap of history against their will.
Just ask the Jewish tribes of Saudi Arabia, or the progressive Christians of Anatolia that favored law and spiritual advancement. and learning over fighting best - left to the lesser status "war-like" Byzantine soldier caste. Or the noble, peaceful, California Yuni tribe.
Whoops! Guess you can't. They are all extinct.
Comments closed August 23, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
Could the reason be that "the administration is hampering the process so that some of these don't someday describe the torture techniques used against them to a lawyer or a judge or the media"?
Since they already have lawyers, the answer to the question would be: no.
Posted by Al | August 9, 2007 12:19 PM