Leaving Gitmo

 --Except if you are in Gitmo

 “Who are you? Just another American
who saw too many movies as a child?
Another orphan of a bankrupt culture
who thinks he’s John Wayne?
--Die Hard (1988)

People react to fear, not love.
They don't teach that in
Sunday school, but it's true
--Richard Nixon

If it doesn't fit
you must acquit
--Johnny Cochran
_______________________

President Obama visited Cuba this week like a shining white knight, a la President Reagan vis-a-vis Gorbachev. "I have come here to bury the last remnant of the Cold War in the Americas," he said.

In his not quite so soaring rhetoric, Mr. Obama pledged to take down the wall that has separated the two nations for 50 years, proclaiming that is what a democracy does -- it engages in free and open debate. For a little extra oomph, he threw in some Kennedy spit polish, suggesting the universality of man in an "Ich ein Berliner" rip (he chose José Martí's, “Cultivo una rosa blanca”). 

What he failed to do was to address the rights of the men that the United States continues to detain in Guantanamo Bay 14 years into a misbegotten war, a prison joint that the President had vowed to close several years ago.

The New York Times ran a laughably disingenuous editorial on the visit, to wit:

" . . .they saw a cantankerous autocrat who failed to [answer] a journalist [who] asked why his government continues to detain people for their political beliefs."

Were they talking about Mr. Obama or Mr.Castro? Hard to tell. Obama is preaching democracy while practicing totalitarianism. Like all good preachers, you tell the flock what makes them feel good.

The problem of Gitmo seems intractable. The hard core faction wants to bring the prisoners to the U.S. and throw them into Supermax. They face a problem, though: before we throw prisoners into  jail and throw away the key, we must conduct a nicety called a "trial". The individuals must then be convicted.

Instead, the Gitmo detainees have been rendered a stateless people in a pre-Magna Carta state, beyond the reach of legality. Some have been released with no trial, others remain in a prison limboland.

Since they are denied Prisoner of War status -- which would afford them certain protections -- they must be convicted or released.

If it doesn't fit . . .

Then There's Maude

I am very glad to have in my cabinet
such able statesmen as you have proved yourself to be.
And I shall be pleased to avail myself
of your counsel and advice.  
But I can never consent to being dictated to. 
I am the President 
and I shall be responsible for my administration
--U.S. President John Tyler
__________________

Re. the words of President Tyler and the desk plaque of Harry Truman: if only President Obama were a "buck-stops-here" kinda guy. Alas.

Let us begin with an oft-forgotten precept in 2014: America is a nation governed by laws, and we oppose the concept of cruel and unusual punishment. This is foundational. But then there's Gitmo (Hearing Offers Rare Peek at Guantanamo.)

Why can't President Obama, as Commander in Chief, order the military to shut down the Guantanamo Bay detention center -- the shining promise of his early administration?

Can the President not use one of his exalted Executive Orders to do it? If Obama can EO the minimum wage, then surely he can EO the closure of Gitmo. He could grant Presidential pardons, and send the prisoners home. Mea culpa.

What have 60 prisoners done that the rebels in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria have not done? Why are the prisoners at Gitmo evil, wicked, mean and nasty, but the jihadists supporting revolt in the region treated to the munificence of U.S. tax dollars? In Syria there are jihadists from about 55 nations whom it is U.S. policy to support.

We the people deserved to witness fair and open trails for the terrorist events of 9-11-01, but have not. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), the one inmate who very publicly fits the bill for being tried, has inexplicably never been before a court. 

If a prisoner has been charged with a war crime, then he should be tried in court. If found guilty, then execute him. What does it mean that some inmates are being considered for a war crimes trial before a military commission? After 12 years the U.S. has not moved to try these inmates; it's time to piss, or get off the pot. Gitmo is a stain which has done nothing to make the U.S. safer, or to counter the al Qaeda threat.

America should admit that it has poisoned the well, and even if these inmates were complicit, it is too late for a fair trial. We committed torture and did not obey our legal protocols.

Just as a review for the Rangers in the class:

If a man is al Qaeda and captured on the battlefield then he is a prisoner of war -- UNLESS he can be proven to have committed war crimes or crimes against humanity. Generally, terrorists do not fight on the battlefield and even if they did, they are not a threat to the U.S., which is the tag affixed to the Gitmo detainees. (If an al Qaeda is captured on the battlefield this generally means that the person is a military member of the organization and not a classic terrorist threat.)

Military threats are far threats and hence, of minimal concern to our citizens at home.

Here is an idea: send the Gitmo detainees to the Syrian rebels and call it a day.

Club Med

--We Will Not Fail, Samira Yamin

~What's this?

~Oh, this is our prototype. RX, uh, Intercontinental, radar-sneaky, multi-warheaded nuclear missile.

~Ah! What does it do?

~Do? Kills the enemy.

~All the enemy?

~Aye, all of them. All their wives, and all their children, and all their sheep, and all their cattle, and all their cats and dogs. All of them. All of them gone for good.

~That's horrible.

 ~Ahh. Well, you see, the advantage is you don't have to see one single one of them die. You just sit comfortably thousands of miles away from the battlefield and simply press the button.

~Well, where's the fun in that? 

--The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988)

Resistance fighters resist,
not insurgents
who just want to live
where they live 
--"Occupation", fr. Terese Svoboda’s, Weapons Grade

 Cuba, Cuba here I come
There's a place in the Caribbean sun
Land of future
Land of dreams 
--Cuba Cuba, Ace of Base
___________________

Sad when Monthy Python member Terry Gilliam predicts your future 25 years hence.

We can tell you where Ranger is not this Memorial Day weekend -- Club Med. But for the $900,000/year price tag we pay to house each prisoner in Guantanamo Bay, they might as well be. We will call it, the Club Med Gulag on Gitmo.

If the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th Amendments do not disallow the Federal government from keeping these prisoners without due process, then the money pit aspect of the project should. If we will not outsource their upkeep to the Med resorts, then why not the Playboy Mansion in Wisconsin, for surely that would provide a conundrum: a punishment in the form of a living hell, in the form of the gifts of the martyr's afterlife. But surely it would not exceed the 900K per head we currently pay, for 168 prisoners, for 11 years.

It is not bubkas. Especially not for a country under sequester, with crumbling infrastructure like this latest bridge collapse which the NTSB says should be a wake-up call, and an economy to match. Just ask the tens of thousands out of work for years now -- maybe your neighbors, maybe you.

Gitmo is frivolous, making it not just a national stain on our rule of law, but a crying shame.

McCain and Abel

Nothing's wrong as far as I can see 
We make it harder than it has to be 
and I can't tell you why 
no, baby, I can't tell you why  
--I Can't Tell You Why, The Eagles 

Am I my brother’s keeper? 
--Genesis 4:9

If Cain were Abel 
he would give you a flower
--R.D. Laing 

__________________

In one of our many national divisions, we are riven by how we think terrorists should be adjudicated. Those who know our legal system can prosecute criminals effectively say try them in the Federal court system; opposing them are those who think a terrorist is a new kind of animal, and that we must twist ourselves into contortions in order to deal with them; usually this involves invoking an extrajudicial approach.

President Obama seems to favor the first approach, but he has been ineffective in imposing his view. In his first term he promised to close down the black hole that is Guantanamo Bay, yet it remains an open gulag. "Terrorist Mastermind" Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he of 183 waterboardings infamy, has still not been tried in court.

Leading the opposition, oddly, is former Prisoner of War and Arizona Rep. Senator John McCain, he who had previously led a principled argument against the use of torture on prisoners in the War on Terror, from both a pragmatic and a moral position. Now he is leading the call for military tribunals for terrorists on the grounds that they be re-branded "illegal enemy combatants", a fuzzy construction conferring a false military quality to their being. This is based in the false presumption that because terrorists are such an aberrant being, we must become aberrant to deal with them.

Fact: The U.S. is not involved in a low-intensity conflict in CONUS, is not in a state of insurgency nor is there a unconventional or guerrilla (UW/GW) warfare scenario either extant or ready to blossom into a full-blown war.  There has never been a combat action in the U.S. conducted by terrorists. Terrorists are simple craven criminals.

Sadly for McCain, his current posture directly opposes and perverts his previous objection of torture, namely, it would make us no better than them. It makes him seem disintegrated or worse, forgetful or a madman.  Instead, he is probably just pandering to the disjointed madding crowd, which amounts to the same thing.

The provenance of the terrorist is immaterial.  Whether U.S.-born,  immigrant or foreign national, a terrorist commits homicide, kidnaps, bombs, attempts murder and violates firearms statutes, ergo, they are criminals to be tried by U.S. courts of law. That's simple.


Next: Pt II McCain and Abel

The $800,000 Question

National Priorities Project

Well we're droppin' our bombs
In the Southern Hemisphere
And people are starving
That live right here
--Love and Happiness,
John Cougar Mellencamp
___________________

Some sundry figures: It costs $800,000 per year to house one prisoner in Guantanamo Bay, per Mother Jones (11/10/11); Eurasia Review cites a $1 million figure for each cleared Gitmo inmate. The inmates have no date of release.

Compare those figures with the $47,102 annual cost for incarcerating an inmate in a California state jail (lao.ca.gov). The sites says, "[o]ver two-thirds of these costs are for security and inmate health care" ($19,663 and $12,442, respectively.) Annual incarceration fee per prisoner at Supermax is estimated to be $76,000.

So here is the $800,000 question: Why does the U.S. still have prisoners at Gitmo and why are we, the U.S. taxpayers, paying this money to keep them there (especially since the closing of Gitmo was one of President Obama election promises . . . how soon the honeymoon promises are tossed aside)? What are we getting from this expenditure to house cleared prisoners? Why do the incarceration costs at Gitmo far exceed the rates at other state and federal facilities?

And what of the benefits from any of the human detritus we have swept up? We paid a cool $25 million for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (forgetting all of the incidental costs leading up to his capture.) The U.S. has spent at least $7 million to maintain him, and to what purpose and what gain? KSM has never stood before a federal judge, so what form, justice?

The Supercommittee could not arrive at a budget agreement, but we never put the wars or the panoply of related costs on the chopping block.

Consider the very small issue of the incarceration cost of one cleared Gitmo prisoner. Assuming the average citizen pays $5,000 is taxes annually, this means 160 individual annual taxes go to house one prisoner incarcerated in a phony war. Multiply that by the 170 prisoners currently in Gitmo and you see that 27,200 citizens pay their entire taxes to house Gitmo prisoners.

In Ranger's grid square of the Military-Industrial complex in impoverished Northwest Florida, the $800,000 it takes to house one prisoner could fund a full-time homeless shelter or several youth centers. It costs $2.50/visit to the local municipal swim complex. $5/wk for ftwo visits would be beyond the reach of an impoverished child or a citizen living on meager disability funds, and yet those citizens could most benefit from access. Why aren't our municipal facilities accessible by all citizens? And no, there are no provisions to allow reduced fee access for our neediest.

The local Big Bend Homeless Coalition disburses a federal grant for homeless people providing $550 in rent and $113.10 for utilities to cover about 120 apartments -- a supply far underserving the need. As the citizens gain income, they then pay a pro-rated amount. Our local Section 8 Housing Program is an absolute wash, with needy citizens routinely turned away and told to try back in a month, and then another month; a program representative said they are working on logs from three years ago.

Back to the prisoners: The Israelis recently released 1,000 truly dangerous fighters in exchange for one Israeli soldier, and they released them knowing they were still military assets that would take up the cause.

The British released IRA military personnel from prison when they signed their cease-fire. At some point, all of these dangerous men must be released. A liberal society cannot keep people interminably incarcerated sans fair trial. That is not the way we roll.

Gitmo is not Dachau.

Darkness at Noon

War is a ritual, a deadly ritual,
not the result of aggressive self-assertion,
but of self-transcending identification.
Without loyalty to tribe, church, flag or ideal,
there would be no wars
--Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler
________________

The Guantanamo Bay detention facilities remain an open sore indicting our inappropriate and illegal response to the perceived terror threat.

Undoubtedly there are some serious criminal elements which target American interests worldwide. Even so, what about the ones held at Gitmo without a glimmer of judicial relief -- either for themm or for us?

Americans expect and need a fair and equitable court system, one which offers liberty and justice for all, no exceptions. Suspected terrorists are not beyond this concept. Liberty is applied blindly, without regard to any predispositions.

Even USAToday considers the Gitmo quagmire:

At the top of the list is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of 9/11. Trying him and others in the U.S. justice system could be problematic for reasons that include the inadmissibility of some evidence (because it was obtained under torture, is hearsay and so on). And what to do with anyone found not guilty? (Guantanamo Blame Game).

The last sentence is the crux of the biscuit. If one is not guilty, the answer to the question of one's legal status is axiomatic. In our legal system, if one is found not guilty, one is released from custody. What could be simpler?

A case like that of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would seem to be simple, as he is portrayed as a really bad guy. But is he really? We are all innocent until proven guilty, and trial by newspaper is not a judicial event. The proof against KSM has not been forthcoming. Evidence must follow evidentiary rules. Furthermore, torture and years spent incarcerated awaiting trial are not elements of U.S. jurisprudence.

If KSM is a bad man, then he should have been tried immediately after capture. Why wasn't he? Instead he was spirited away to secret sites and subjected to Skull and Crossbones initiation rights. Clearly, he was tortured. How could KSM ever receive a fair trial in a U.S. courtroom today?

A bigger question than what to do after these inmates are found not guilty is: How will we handle the civil suits which will most certainly arise, including denial of civil rights, illegal imprisonment and torture? Then what?

The "worst-of-the-worst" are probably being held in super-secret isolation because they know too much, rather than merely what they know. It is a big lie to say they cannot get an open trial because of national security concerns. The trials would concern 9-11-01 and the plans and related operations. This is not operational or strategic security. This is merely historical data at this point.

Ranger's solution: Forget the trial. Let Yoo, Addington, Wolfowitz, Tenet et. al. form up a firing quad and just shoot them. Dick Cheney would be the honorary color guard. This would be done at midnight, to ensure that we stay on the Dark Side.

But seriously folks -- What progress have we seen since George Bush was replaced by Obama?

We are still up to our asses in alligators, and no one is trying to drain the swamp.

Don't Trouble Your Head

________________

Seems strange that Congress won't appropriate funds for Gitmo's closing without a plan.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, who sponsored the amendment that blocked the funds, said it was "not a referendum on closing Guantanamo (Obama Seeks to Quell Detainee Issue Trouble).

Just last week they passed yet another "emergency funding" of $90+ Billion to continue a war that has no plan for success. These appropriations keep coming, like thoroughly discredited FU's (Friedman Units), with nary a peep about vague plans thus far.

Fighting over $80 Million is politics, and has nothing to do with fiscal planning or management.

Limbo Land

With the thoughts you'll be thinkin'
you could be another Lincoln

If you only had a brain
--If I only Had a Brain, Harburg/Arlen

_______________

Ranger was wrong.

Specifically, in the semantical matter of detainees in the current hostilities. His position was that detainees were actually either Prisoners of War or criminals, who should be held and charged within the Federal Court system.

However, it is now apparent that most of these people are in fact political prisoners, as they are being held not through any wartime or constitutional legality. "23 of the men have been declared in court not to be enemies of the United States," yet they live in a "strange limbo" behind barbed wire at Gitmo (For 20 at Guantánamo, Court Victories Fall Short.)

These people are neither enemy combatants nor illegal enemy combatants. Barring criminal status, that leaves only one possibility.

Following Secretary of State Clinton's signature on the Department of State's Report on Human Rights-- which tapped Communist China for its abuses -- the U.S. does look a bit hypocritical, especially considering the fact that exonerated men are still languishing in U.S. prisons. President Obama must act quickly and order the release of these men. The rehabilitation of America requires this action.

These incarcerated men are very possibly enemies of the U.S., just not illegal enemy combatants; not executably so. No moreso than the average Pakistani walking the streets of Islamabad.

They will probably end up living in the U.S. and living well, because they were illegally imprisoned and tortured. (Torture is being illegally detained for seven years.) While a very real scenario, it is nothing to get excited about.

In World War II German and Italian troops were housed and utilized as day labor in the U.S., and many remained in the states, later becoming citizens. Many also returned to America after their repatriation.

What better statement could be made about the U.S. than the integration of former prisoner and enemies into our society? The Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) has created such terror that governors are afraid to have al-Qaeda members incarcerated in facilities in their states. We are like the Tin and the Straw Man, with great fear stoked by little cogitation.

The U.S. can fight and kill them over there, yet are too afraid to even jail them here?

"In a news conference in Washington, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said that in a visit to Guantánamo on Monday he noted a “very conscious attempt” by guards to 'conduct themselves in an appropriate way'."

How does a guard comport himself in an "appropriate way" while illegally detaining prisoners? And you thought looking good while performing activities was just the purview of the Bush administration. Sounds good, though.

The continued incarceration of these prisoners in a criminal act. It is called false imprisonment.

The entire PWOT was ill-conceived and executed. A good plan addresses these contingencies before their actuality, rather than as an afterthought.

Hucksters and Rubes

Sister Aimee
in action versus the forces of evil

__________

Closing Gitmo is a useless, phony public relations ploy aimed to give the impression that the rule of law has become important to GWB in the Phony War on Terror.

"Senior administration officials said Thursday that a consensus is building to shut the center and transfer detainees to one or more Defense Department facilities, including the maximum-security military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. . . The Guantanamo facility houses about 380 detainees.

"Cheney's office and the Justice Department have been dead set against the step, arguing that moving "unlawful" enemy combatant suspects to the U.S. would give them undeserved legal rights" (Plan Afoot to Shut Guantanamo.)

Of course, the real struggle with terrorism will only be achieved with real actions that address the actual threat posed by terrorism.

Gitmo and secret prisons must be closed because they violate U.S. and international laws. Contrary to GWB and Cheney claims, these prisoners are lawful enemy combatants--soldiers, like ours-- captured on the field of battle, and their detention can only be justified under the auspices of the Geneva Convention.

The G.C. does not authorize the use of prisons or solitary confinements when dealing with combatants.

Several prisoner, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (he of long-term CIA affiliation), are hard core al Qaida operatives, and were not captured on the field of battle. Therefore, their incarceration should appropriately be as prisoners within the criminal justice system. That sort is a criminal, since they conspired to kill American civilians in the civilian sector.

This is the terrorism that U.S. policy should address. That is the threat posed to America. A Taliban rifleman in Afghanistan or Iraq is totally inconsequential to the safety of Americans.

The problem with Gitmo is that both groups of prisoners were treated inhumanely, some actually shanghied and bought for bounties; all were degraded and tortured.

Most importantly, many may have long-term CIA ties that are most embarrassing to the U.S., and we'll never know unless there are open, non-secret trials. What is the administration trying to conceal from the taxpayers? It would seem this fact must be kept secret at all costs.

What is the administration trying to conceal from the taxpayers? What could be worse than the torture that we already know about?

Secrecy is a policy which should not be utilized merely to hide embarrassing facts. Like the fact that the State Department gave $245 million to the Taliban in 2002. It seems that U.S. policy buys the best enemies we can afford.

Closing Gitmo and the secret prisons is a must-do action which is meaningless unless accompanied by a return to the rule of law by the U.S. administration.

"Human Rights Watch said the continued detention of hundreds of men without charge undermined U.S. efforts to end terrorism. (U.S. Struggles With Shutting Down Guantanamo.)

"'Guantanamo has hurt the United States far more than it has hurt its enemies," said Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch. 'Its closure would help restore the moral authority America needs to effectively fight terrorism and promote the rule of law.'"

The American people, including Congress, must realize that this entire Phony War on Terror is the worst stain on American jurisprudence, leadership and credibility since, well, since GWB became President. I can think of no precedent in the annals of damaging and outrageous national behavior.

Are we so gulled by a flourish, like the demolition of a building? I thought the grand gesture over the Abu Ghraib destruction was affected to appeal to a simpler mindset, for people who saw the thing as inseparable from the behavior.

We have not come far from the days of Aimee Semple McPherson's preaching. We are still the same hucksters and rubes.

The American people are responsible for this grave miscarriage of justice. I see the term in the literal, for the Republicans have aborted the Constitution from the way it conducts business.

Which Side of the Fence are You On?

I have emphasized before that this was a struggle of Cuban patriots against a Cuban dictator. ...we made it repeatedly clear that the armed forces of this country would not intervene in any way.

Any unilateral American intervention, in the absence of an external attack upon ourselves or an ally, would have been contrary to our traditions and to our international obligations
--John F. Kennedy, Bay of Pigs Invasion speech (1961)

Willard Gates: Raven... how do you feel when you're doing... [indicates murder headlines] this?
Phillip Raven: I feel fine
--This Gun for Hire (1942)
______________

While President Kennedy's speech included a small untruth regarding U.S. involvement, he nonetheless spoke to an electorate who understood the job of their President, and as a president who understood his obligation to international law. ''...this Government will not hesitate in meeting its primary obligations, which are to the security of our Nation.'' That is the truth, a truth unfortunately made murky by this administration, with the complicity of the press.

It is this subtle, ethnocentric agenda of most MSM interests me. A small bit recently on a Bay of Pigs veteran provides an example:

TITUSVILLE, Fla. - A Bay of Pigs paratrooper will sky dive Saturday in Titusville to commemorate the 46th anniversary of the ill-fated U.S. invasion of Cuba.

Special Forces veteran Edel R. Fernandez of Titusville was a paratrooper during the April 17, 1961, invasion. He was kept as a political prisoner for almost two years.

So, Mr. Fernandez jumped into Cuba as a part of a U.S.-trained, equipped and funded military assault force that had as its intention the overthrow of the government of Cuba, which most Americans will recognize as a sovereign, if much maligned, state. And he then morphed into ''Political prisoner.''

How did he turn into persecuted hero ideologue from paratrooper? He did not languish in Gitmo for five years as an armed enemy combatant.

Even though paratrooper Fernandez did not ostensibly nor in point of fact represent a nation, the U.S. policy was to require the Cuban government to treat them as bona fide POW's. Yet today, we do not afford that same right to the prisoners we hold at Gitmo, who instead meet with inappropriate punishments.

Our standards are inconsistent. Without a doubt, men like Fernandez killed Cuban soldiers during this venture, yet none of them were tried for the crime of murder, as we trying to do with the Gitmo inmates. Killing on the field of battle is not murder, nor should it be treated as such.

Therefore, the correct title for Mr. Fernandez during his capture in Cuba would be ''POW,'' as he was captured on the field of battle by a sovereign state. But the confusion is understandable in a country which eschews calling a spade a spade, for that precise nomenclature would entail responsibility. Responsibility today seems the most onerous of things for this country to own up to.

If you are responsible, you must ensure proper care and treatment. To earn the title humane, you must not abuse your responsibilities. If you are uncertain or ambivalent, and do not define your status in relationship to another, anything is possible. That anything usually ends up being the languishing of those which have come under your provenance. And that is neither kind nor fair nor just.

Just because Mr. Fernandez hired on with the U.S., doesn't automatically make his cause just. He is not exempt from title of combatant simply by virtue of his affiliation. He was a shooter, not a political protester. Likewise, the U.S. is not presumed to be ideologically justified simply because is it advancing its own interests. Terms like ''right'' and ''terrorist'' are often determined by which side of the fence on which you live.

If we were to play the semantic game that Mr. Fernandez was a political prisoner, then what are the occupants of Gitmo and other secret prison facilities throughout the free world? Political prisoner applies more aptly to present-day U.S. detainees than to Mr. Fernandez, who was a mercenary invading a sovereign state. Most Gitmo prisoners were indigenous fighters defending their homeland, not offensive fighters-for-hire captured in a foreign territory. They were the home team.

For all of his vilification, Castro treated these prisoners more equably than U.S. policy is managing to do in Cuba today.

Hindsight indicates that the Bay of Pigs served as a mini-practice for later regime change type invasions like Grenada, Panama, Iraq and Afghanistan. It is a simple, straightforward formula: invade, kick ass, and kick 'em out. Put in your lackeys. Repeat, if necessary.

Only it didn't go to plan in Cuba.

Living Large

"I am a bear of very little brains,
and long words bother me"
--Winnie the Pooh
________________

The Wall Street Journal often amuses me, in a horrifying sort of a way. Yes, the prisoners at Gitmo are packing on the pounds, but that is not what this piece refers to.

In "Gitmo High Life," writer Robert Pollock contends that since fewer than 1% of detainees suffer mood disorders, this would seem to give lie to the thought "That indefinite detention is itself a form of mental torture." However, it is simply not a tenet of American jurisprudence to incarcerate an individual for an indefinite period sans sentencing, evident mental tics or no.

Next, Pollock quotes Gitmo base commander Adm. Harry Harris as rejecting the term "prison," and saying, "We are not about punishment; we are about keeping enemy combatants off the battlefield." There are so many mistaken ideas here.

First, if it were a prison, Adm. Harris could not mete out punishment to the inmates. Punishment is the sentence handed down by a court of law. A prison is a detention facility where an inmate serves out a term of incarceration. He is not to sustain punishment therein.

Next, if these inmates are "enemy combatants," then they are prisoners of war. They are not so many delinquents to be "kept off the battlefield." Detained enemy combatant= POW.

Therefore, they shouldn't be in a penitentiary, and they should be afforded the rights of the Geneva Convention, which means "indefinite detention" is quite illegal.

--by Lisa