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Our Guantanamo prison has become quite a political mess. Yielding to popular opinion, Obama promised to close it. However, his fellow Democrats recently decided to deny funding for its closure until he comes up with a plan. Perhaps the Democrats are being reasonable: after all, it would be unwise to allocate money irresponsibly (perhaps they learned something from AIG…). On the other hand, it is something of a slap at Obama. Perhaps they are trying to milk the situation for some political gain?
One of the main questions is what to do with the prisoners. One proposal is to transfer them to prisons on American soil. However, that has started off a frenzy of Not In My Backyard.
When people talk about transferring the prisoners, they often make it sound like they will simply be dropped off in a US city, perhaps with a new suit and $5 in their pocket. However, that is not the plan. The plan is to transfer them to a prison or prisons.
After a politician goes into a “no” frenzy, they typically start tossing out reasons as to why these prisoners cannot be imprisoned in his/her state. The main reason given is that these prisons would be a terrible threat. To be specfiic, it is claimed that they might: escape and commit acts of terror, radicalize other prisoners, establish means of funding terror (perhaps by tapping into the lucrative criminal enterprises thriving in American prisons) and so on.
On one hand, these are reasonable concerns. Presumably each members of Congress who has said “no” is doing so based on his knowldedg of his state’s’ prison system. If they believe that their prison system cannot handle prisoners adequately, then such claims should be taken seriously.Of course, this should spur an investigation into these prisons.
On the other hand, it might be suspected that a political game is being played. After all, our prisons already hold very dangerous and wicked people. That is what they are, in part, intended to do.
Of course, some folks in Congress would have us believe that the Guantanamo prisoners are a special sort of prisoner and are beyond the power of our prison system to contain. The obvious reply to this is that we have already been containing them. Further, as others have pointed out, we already have terrorists and very dangerous people in our prisons. Naturally, if some of the prisoners have special training or are masters of escape (apparently not from Guantanamo, though) then they can be sent to prisons designed to deal with that. After all, we do have maximum security prisons in the US.
They also stress how these people would do very bad things if they got out. While this is a reasonable concern, it is not a special concern. Some of the folks who are in prison are there because they did very bad things and it is assumed that they would do such things again if they escaped. If we accepted that people who would do bad things if they escaped should not be locked up in the US, then we would need to transfers prisoners from the US to places like Guantanamo. Also, during WWII we had POWs on US soil. If we can handle trained soldiers in a time of war, surely we can handle these prisoners as well.
Another tactic is to argue that having the prisoners brought to the US would cost the taxpayers money. One flaw with this argument is that they already cost us money. Of course, it is reasonable to consider the expense. But, if we can afford to keep 1% of our population locked up, we can handle a few more prisoners.
Yet another concern is that the prisoners might get trials and be released. Naturally, the fear is that they will be released in the United States and start being terrorists here. Or they might go someplace else and be terrorists there. It has been claimed that 1 in 7 of the 534 detainees already transferred abroad have returned to an involvement in terrorism or militant activity. Interestingly, this gives them a recidivism rate far less than criminals. Apparently about 50% of criminals return to crime after being in prison. In California, the percentage is even higher.
While this terror recidivism is a concern, the same concern applies to anyone who is sent to prison. If is acceptable to keep the Guantanamo prisoners locked up indefinitely, then the same logic would apply to all prisoners. In fact, normal criminals would be of greater concern because of a higher rate of recidivism. However, this approach hardly seems correct or reasonable.
Perhaps these folks in Congress are worried about the possibility of the trial as much as the possibility of release. After all, a trial might reveal embarrassing or unpleasant facts about what was done. However, if these prisoners are as bad as is claimed and if we have imprisoned them justly, then surely there must be adequate evidence that would stand up in a legitimate trial? Surely we have nothing to fear from being the unjust and wicked to justice?
One reasonable legal concern is the status of the prisoners. Are they criminals? If so, they have the right to a criminal trial. Are they enemy combatants? If so, they would fall under the relevant laws and would also be entitled to proper treatment? Or do they occupy a legally gray area? A case can certainly be made for that. However, we cannot just leave them in the gray-something must be done.
While some folks on the right have been calling the closing of the prison and the decision to have trials a public relations or popularity thing, it is actually a serious matter. While Bush and his fellows seemed to take the view that what others think of the US matters not, Obama realizes that it does matter. While nations are not individuals, they are composed of individuals. If one person thinks well of another, then she is more inclined to help that person. If one person thinks poorly of another, then they are less inclined to help. If people in other countries think better of us, they will be more inclined to work with us.
So, closing the prison is, in part, a popularity thing. But being liked and popular are valuable resources in politics. Just as a company crafts its public image in order to move more product, we need to craft our public image in order to win people over. Doing the right thing is also important-it is good to see the two coincide.
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http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/05/22/obama_vindicates_bush.html
Bush right. Obama knows this now.
So, Obama has a small agreement with Bush and this shows that he knows that Bush is right?
Read the article. Read my blog on the war on terror (most recent). Obama’s policy on terror, the wars and Gitmo are essentially Bush’s policy.
As Krauthammer state sin the article:” As in his rhetorically brilliant national-security speech on Thursday claiming to have undone Bush’s moral travesties, the military commissions flip-flop is accompanied by the usual Obama three-step: (a) excoriate the Bush policy, (b) ostentatiously unveil cosmetic changes, (c) adopt the Bush policy.”
There are some meaningful changes in what Obama is doing. But, if you are right and Obama is becoming just like Bush…well, damn.
I agree that Obama is making some meaningful and positive changes, but clearly not enough to satisfy everyone. I also agree that we simply must close Guantanamo, if only for the symbolism.
I do worry, however, that all the incentives to take prisoners are now gone: we can’t interrogate them, and there is no where to keep them. My guess is that the number of prisoners returning from the battlefield will go way down.
I think we should keep it open for symbolism. Send a message to the media and the rest of the world. The message will be that we will not cave to pressure when we need to get something done just to appease peoples opinions and ideology.
It would send a message, but probably not that message. We should close it, hold trials and resolve the matter. If we have adequate evidence of guilt, then we should inflict the appropriate punishments. That is justice, after all. I do agree that we have a problem with what to do with the folks for whom we lack such evidence. Some of them probably would like revenge on the US-so releasing them could be a danger-just like releasing someone who was wrongly convicted could be a danger. After all, they might have built up a great deal of rage in prison. But, we do let out the wrongfully accused when they are found innocent.
“It would send a message, but probably not that message. We should close it, hold trials and resolve the matter. If we have adequate evidence of guilt, then we should inflict the appropriate punishments. That is justice, after all. I do agree that we have a problem with what to do with the folks for whom we lack such evidence. Some of them probably would like revenge on the US-so releasing them could be a danger-just like releasing someone who was wrongly convicted could be a danger. After all, they might have built up a great deal of rage in prison. But, we do let out the wrongfully accused when they are found innocent.”
Do you have any stats on how many are being held without enough evidence if any? I’m sure when they get out and kill people it is because they want revenge and not because they were that way in the first place. You are making many assumptions here.
Just look at the stats for people who have been shown to be innocent after doing time. This gets a lot of press because of the use of DNA in many cases. People who are released seem more inclined to try to rebuild their lives rather than seeking revenge.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-02-11-wrongly-convicted_x.htm
http://www.americaswrongfullyconvicted.com/
http://www.infoniac.com/offbeat-news/man-found-innocent-after-years-spent-prison.html
http://www.truthinjustice.org/convictedbut.htm
I was looking for more of a percentage. I’m sure it is minimal.
Looks like we are outsourcing the dirty work. Note the “gained momentum under Mr. Obama” in the second quote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/world/24intel.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all
The United States is now relying heavily on foreign intelligence services to capture, interrogate and detain all but the highest-level terrorist suspects seized outside the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, according to current and former American government officials.
…
The current approach, which began in the last two years of the Bush administration and has gained momentum under Mr. Obama, is driven in part by court rulings and policy changes that have closed the secret prisons run by the Central Intelligence Agency, and all but ended the transfer of prisoners from outside Iraq and Afghanistan to American military prisons.
Interesting. If true and if we do rely on the “moral flexibility” of others, then that seems to be a problem. If we are going to rely on others using such methods but fear getting our hands dirty ourselves, then that is a problem. We don’t stay clean by letting other people do that for us. Some might see it as worse in some ways.
“Interesting. If true and if we do rely on the “moral flexibility” of others, then that seems to be a problem. If we are going to rely on others using such methods but fear getting our hands dirty ourselves, then that is a problem. We don’t stay clean by letting other people do that for us. Some might see it as worse in some ways.”
So we are back full circle to keeping Gitmo open for now just like Obama and Congress voted on? We are exactly where they are in this discussion. If they were shot on the battlefield(this would probably have been a worse fate for them) then we would not be having this discussion at the moment. It seems to make that battlefield snap, spur of the moment decision easier. You know, the close calls? 🙂
Well, closing Gitmo is an important symbolic act. If we continue to capture people, then we will need a prison system for them as well as proper trials. But, this needs to be done properly and not in the shadows.
Shooting people in battle is morally undesirable. After all, it would be preferable to resolve conflicts peacefully. If we accept that wars are acceptable, then the shooting of combatants in combat is acceptable.
Gitmo is in the shadows? I know more about what happens there than in any other prison I can think of.
Great point, Jaimie.
Well, it is lit up now. But it was kept in the shadows for quite some time. If we had handled it openly at the start, we would not have as big of a mess now.
I don’t think he’s just like Bush. But Bush’s anti-terror policies worked. Obama knows this. The far left never will.
Iraq worked? Those nuclear detectors worked? That failed data mining system worked? His diplomacy worked?
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/05/obama-thumped-senate-votes-90-6-to-keep.html
Even the Senate knows Bush was right. Obviously Mike the Senate, Obama and Bush all have much more information they can tap into on the subject than we are privy to. It is obvious that all the political posturing and hot gas speeches are to pander to their constituents. A week ago you would have thought the vote would be opposite. What gives? Are the Dems lying to their voters?
Obama can now read the reports I read. He now think about anti-terror like I do.
I think it is pretty obvious Obama has continued many of Bush’s national security policies. The following is from Krauthammer:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/05/22/obama_vindicates_bush.html
Observers of all political stripes are stunned by how much of the Bush national security agenda is being adopted by this new Democratic government. Victor Davis Hanson (National Review) offers a partial list: “The Patriot Act, wiretaps, e-mail intercepts, military tribunals, Predator drone attacks, Iraq (i.e. slowing the withdrawal), Afghanistan (i.e. the surge) — and now Guantanamo.”
Jack Goldsmith (The New Republic) adds: rendition — turning over terrorists seized abroad to foreign countries; state secrets — claiming them in court to quash legal proceedings on rendition and other erstwhile barbarisms; and the denial of habeas corpus — to detainees in Afghanistan’s Bagram prison, indistinguishable logically and morally from Guantanamo.
What does it all mean? Democratic hypocrisy and demagoguery? Sure, but in Washington, opportunism and cynicism are hardly news.
There is something much larger at play — an undeniable, irresistible national interest that, in the end, beyond the cheap politics, asserts itself. The urgencies and necessities of the actual post-9/11 world, as opposed to the fanciful world of the opposition politician, present a rather narrow range of acceptable alternatives.
Interesting. I wonder if this is being done because those methods work, because politicians are lacking in the imagination needed for new ideas, because the system is entrenched and being carried ahead by inertia, or some other reason.
Here’s more from Michael Isikoff:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/198706
“While declining to talk about any of the specific back-and-forth, American Civil Liberties Union executive director Anthony Romero told NEWSWEEK he was not happy about much of what he heard during the meeting. Obama showed a “remarkable command” of the issues, Romero said. But, he added, “it is disappointing that he appears poised to continue with many of the Bush policies that have ended in failure. If he goes down that track, President Obama will find himself in the same legal morass that swallowed up George Bush.”
The ACLU is a bunch of high-powered high-payed lawyers whom in reality want violation of human rights to occur so they can make money from it.
You have proof of this? Not that I would doubt that a lawyer (or anyone else) would be self serving.
I’ll have stacks of it and will write several blogs about it.
The politicians are clearly worried that a prisoner
will be released into the U.S. and then go on to commit a terrorist atrocity.
This would be like Willie Horton raised to 100th power and would end many political careers.
However much they may love Obama, they love their power even more and will do what they can to be re-elected.
I think we can handle the prisoners. After all, we’ve handled some very bad folks. But, you are right. People have irrational fears about the prisoners and the clever politician knows that she must either ride those fears to re-election or get crushed under the wave. Or, in rare cases, convince us that we have nothing to fear but fear itself.
Perhaps they should become your neighbors.
Well, there are prisons in the area already. So, if I can live with these prisons being around me, I could live with the prisoners being locked up near me. Sure, having prisons around is a risk-some murderer could bust out and kill me and my pets with a shotgun while trying a home invasion. But I’m not going to lose sleep over it. So, if they lock up some prisoner from Gitmo nearby, I won’t lose any sleep either.
Then why lose sleep over them being in Gitmo?
I don’t. But, it is a symbolic thing. Perception manipulation is a critical part of politics. Consider, for example, the Vietnam War. As has often been pointed out, we won the military engagements but lost the war politically. Part of this was that the images of the war helped make it unpopular at home. By closing Gitmo, we change our image and most likely change how others perceive us. If this is a positive change, it can give us political capital to spend.
In many ways, our struggle against the various terrorist groups is a moral struggle and this includes the image of morality. The more we are seen as being in the right and the more they are seen as evil, the easier the battles will become.
It may matter with sentiment at home but I am sure it does little to effect the enemy. Propaganda will be used whether we do the right thing or not.
It is not primarily a matter of affecting the enemy, although that would be a plus. The main benefit is influencing those who are not our enemies. The world does include more than just us and “the enemy.”
“If this is a positive change, it can give us political capital to spend.”
To stop Iran or North Korea with their Nuclear programs? I don’t think this capital goes very far unless it is in their best interest. I’m not so sure it can be measured. Besides, since when does acting bad by a country or people mean anything? Hezbolla anyone? They throw rockets into Isreal, start a bunch of crap and we are sending them money or thinking about it? This is a terrorist organization. It would seem there are other ways to build capital.
No, political capital does not come in the form of coins or a numerical balance. But, we can get a general idea about how much we have. Sure-no nation is going to willingly do anything that goes against what is seen as in the best interest. So, we have to cause them to see that behaving well is in their best interest.
Bad behavior does mean something. Of course, it means the most when it also threatens interests. For example, there was the first Persian Gulf War against Iraq. There was also our involvement in what was Yugoslavia. Interest does generally trump professed ethics, but sometimes the two coincide.
So, what is your solution to Iran and North Korea?
I do not think the fear is of one of the terrible people escaping from one of our super prisons. I think the fear is our justice system because of some technicality or blunder as in the case of OJ Simspon would let one of these men fre on our soil. Bill Ayers said it best with his own experience. “Guilty as Sin, Free as a Bird, It’s a Great Country.” -Bill Ayers. Now what is that irrational fear again Mike?
That is a risk. But, if they are criminals, then they are entitled to justice. The mere fact that something might be screwed up does not mean that they should not get trials. After all, the same logic would apply to everyone accused of a crime.
Now, we could take the old Soviet style approach: an assumption of guilt. It all depends on what sort of legal philosophy one has regarding whether it is better to lower the risk of punishing the innocent or letting the guilty go free.
While our legal system is badly flawed and could be greatly improved, having a legal process involving trials seems to be a good system. See Locke’s discussion of the reasons to go from the state of nature to the state of civil society for some good reasons. One very practical reason is also a selfish one: ask yourself what sort of legal system you would like to go through, should you be accused (falsely, of course) of a crime.
Ask anyone in prison. I bet they were all falsely accused. What percentage of all criminals are falsely accused? I’m willing to take that chance.
I’m sure most folks in prison will assure you of their innocence. So, you’d like to switch to a presumption of guilt?
Mike, you’re getting worse. Here’s Colonel ralph Peters to set you straight.
http://soldiercitizen.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/5-56-kills-terrorists-dead-and-reduces-the-income-of-lawyers/
Hard core. But, I can see the appeal. Some bad folks can be redeemed, but as my ethics professor once said “some people you have to kill.” You just have to be careful to sort them out before pulling the trigger-provided there is time.
Locke has an interesting justification for this approach.
The moonbats are howling. Even I cannot quell their rage…
Just beat them down until they cry out for socialized medicine and legalized pot to ease their pain.
http://soldiercitizen.wordpress.com/2009/05/24/podcast-episode-1-gitmo/
This is not a positive change. It’s posturing. All the Dem senators that pounded their moralizing fists over Gitmo now don’t want to house the prisoners in their states.
The question is: What is changing except the prisoners location? Let’s spend millions more dollars shutting down a facility and moving them just to have exactly the same result: Terrorists behind razor wire.
Posturing is all part of politics. If you want to be cynical and focus on what is best for the US, we can benefit from that posturing and use it to gain political influence and PR. The “war on terror” involves a war of ideas and ideology. It is not just about shooting people or water boarding them. Propaganda tools are also critical. Weirdly enough, despite having Madison Avenue and a massive ad industry, we have never been that amazing at propaganda. We need to work on that.
True-the folks who cried out against Gitmo and now cry out against doing what it takes to close it are being rather hypocritical. They are, of course, saying what they think will help them out (“close it…but send them someplace where I’m not running for re-election!”)
Yes, it does seem wasteful to close it down and ship them someplace else. But, this is a political matter. It makes sense if we gain more in moral or political capital than we lose in dollars.
Korea ignore for now. If China won’t play ball and change NC’s behavior than it will not happen. China supplies most of the stuff they require, especially food.
Iran, not sure. Let me think about it a bit.
Arming Japan or the threat of it may help with pressure on China to twist an arm in NK.
Possibly. Or it might lead China to back NK against the US.
As I suspected, all the attention on Gitmo has made the human rights situation even worse.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/29/AR2009052902989.html?hpid%3Dopinionsbox1&sub=AR
The Detainee Shell Game
By Jack Goldsmith
Sunday, May 31, 2009
The revelation last weekend that the United States is increasingly using foreign intelligence services to capture, interrogate and detain terrorist suspects points up an uncomfortable truth about the war against Islamist terrorists. Demands to raise legal standards for terrorist suspects in one arena often lead to compensating tactics in another arena that leave suspects (and, sometimes, innocent civilians) worse off.
The U.S. rendition program — which involves capturing suspected terrorists and whisking them to another country, outside judicial process — began in the 1990s. The government was under pressure to take terrorists off the streets and learn what they knew. But it could not bring them to the United States because U.S. law made it too hard to effectively interrogate and incapacitate them here. So instead it shipped them to Egypt and other places to achieve the same end.
A similar phenomenon has occurred with the U.S. detention of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay. The Gitmo facility was established after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks because the Bush administration believed it needed to apply a different detention and interrogation regime than would be allowed at home. Over the past eight years, courts have exported U.S. legal standards to the island, and now President Obama has promised to close the detention facility.
But closing Guantanamo or bringing American justice there does not end the problem of terrorist detention. It simply causes the government to address the problem in different ways. A little-noticed consequence of elevating standards at Guantanamo is that the government has sent very few terrorist suspects there in recent years. Instead, it holds more terrorists — without charge or trial, without habeas rights, and with less public scrutiny — at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Or it renders them to countries where interrogation and incarceration standards are often even lower.
The cat-and-mouse game does not end there. As detentions at Bagram and traditional renditions have come under increasing legal and political scrutiny, the Bush and Obama administrations have relied more on other tactics. They have secured foreign intelligence services to do all the work — capture, incarceration and interrogation — for all but the highest-level detainees. And they have increasingly employed targeted killings, a tactic that eliminates the need to interrogate or incarcerate terrorists but at the cost of killing or maiming suspected terrorists and innocent civilians alike without notice or due process.
There are at least two problems with this general approach to incapacitating terrorists. First, it is not ideal for security. Sometimes it would be more useful for the United States to capture and interrogate a terrorist (if possible) than to kill him with a Predator drone. Often the United States could get better information if it, rather than another country, detained and interrogated a terrorist suspect. Detentions at Guantanamo are more secure than detentions in Bagram or in third countries.
The second problem is that terrorist suspects often end up in less favorable places. Detainees in Bagram have fewer rights than prisoners at Guantanamo, and many in Middle East and South Asian prisons have fewer yet. Likewise, most detainees would rather be in one of these detention facilities than be killed by a Predator drone. We congratulate ourselves when we raise legal standards for detainees, but in many respects all we are really doing is driving the terrorist incapacitation problem out of sight, to a place where terrorist suspects are treated worse.
It is tempting to say that we should end this pattern and raise standards everywhere. Perhaps we should extend habeas corpus globally, eliminate targeted killing and cease cooperating with intelligence services from countries that have poor human rights records. This sentiment, however, is unrealistic. The imperative to stop the terrorists is not going away. The government will find and exploit legal loopholes to ensure it can keep up our defenses.
This approach to detention policy reflects a sharp disjunction between the public’s view of the terrorist threat and the government’s. After nearly eight years without a follow-up attack, the public (or at least an influential sliver) is growing doubtful about the threat of terrorism and skeptical about using the lower-than-normal standards of wartime justice.
The government, however, sees the terrorist threat every day and is under enormous pressure to keep the country safe. When one of its approaches to terrorist incapacitation becomes too costly legally or politically, it shifts to others that raise fewer legal and political problems. This doesn’t increase our safety or help the terrorists. But it does make us feel better about ourselves.
The writer, a professor at Harvard Law School and a member of the Hoover Institution Task Force on National Security and Law, was an assistant attorney general in the Bush administration.
Are you saying that the attention being paid to Gitmo is the cause of these violations? Do you think things should have been kept secret?
The usual argument seems to be this: if the US cannot have secret prisons, then we will have to send terror suspects to even worse places. So, to avoid worse violations of human rights, we need to have such prisons.
However, that argument seems suspect. There seems to be no compelling reason why we cannot deal with terrorists in a way consistent with open law. The argument that they are wicked bad is not compelling-we deal with wicked bad people quite often in the criminal justice system.
There seems to be the view that failing to operate outside the law, failure to be brutal, and so on somehow makes us less safe. This seems more of an idea born of Hollywood than of reality.