Everything Ancien is Nouveau Again

How do you solve a problem like Maria?
How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?
--Maria, Sound of Music

My soul has dwelt too long
With one who hates peace.
I am for peace;
But when I speak, they are for war
--Psalm 120

Sergeant: If they kill more Russians, they win.
If we kill more Frenchmen, we win.
Boris Gruschenko: What do we win?
--Love and Death (1975)
__________

The French Revolution followed on the heels of the American Revolution, and both were based upon the concept that individuals had rights and were entitled to legalities that superseded and were more fundamental than the right of kings and governments to impose arbitrary rules upon the citizenry.

The blatant barbarism of imprisoning citizens at the Bastille without legal justification was the match that ignited their revolution, and the storming and destruction of that prison was the symbol for the French Revolution. Fast-forward 210 years and 23,000 Iraqi citizens are now imprisoned by a U.S. Army of occupation within Iraqi borders, sans trials. Reliable figures are not available from Afghanistan, but undoubtedly there are large-scale prisons operated by U.S. forces in that country as well.

Similarly, prisoners at Gitmo are also held indefinitely, denied Geneva Convention (G.C.) protections or judicial processes. A recent WaPo piece on the Supreme Court case of Omar and Munif, two American citizens held in a U.S. prison for over three years without access to lawyers or judges, said U.S. courts have struggled in the past to "determine whether indefinite detention is lawful" (A Day in Court Denied.)

Indefinite detention ≠ legality. Indefinite detention is barbarous and hearkens back to the Bastille. One doesn't need recourse to John Yoo's legalistic contortions to figure that out. Only if one wants to sleep better at night.

President Bush's focus and therefore that of most of the U.S. public has been on the several hundred personnel held in the legal hell hole that is Gitmo. But what about the 23,000 held in Iraq, and the untold thousands in Afghanistan? What about any other secret prisons run by the U.S. that we have yet to hear about?

What is the legal basis for the U.S holding prisoners within sovereign borders of foreign nations? The host nations should have the legal jurisdiction to arrest and adjudicate criminal behavior. Assuredly this is the rule of law to which U.S. leaders pay lip service.

What are U.S. plans for these 23,000 Iraqi prisoners? Turn them over to a government that may torture or execute them? Release them? What do you do with people whom you've detained and imprisoned without a trial?

It is safe to say they will not become poster boys for the American justice system. What about their families and loved ones? How many enemies have our actions created through the ripple effect?

The United Nations has bought into this scenario by designating the U.S. an occupying power in Iraq and as such, the U.S. may imprison Iraqis. The problem with this is the only justification for the arrests and imprisonments are based upon the requirement for the occupying power to maintain law and order, and this requires accepting the legal framework outlined in the G.C. (section: responsibilities of the occupying powers), a document we have already eviscerated.

This is a might hypocritical. Legal treaties are documents accepted wholesale. It is not like entering a salvage yard where one may pick and pull what one needs with a crowbar.

Where do these detentions lead? To democracy, as Mr. Bush contends, or to another totalitarian regime?