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 . . .

Smiley's People

 Well the Ukraine girls really knock me out
They leave the West behind
And Moscow girls make me sing and shout
That Georgia's always on m-m-my mind 
--Back in the USSR,
The Beatles 

 There will be no war, but in the pursuit
of principle no stone will be left standing 
--Absolute Friends, John le Carre
___________________

Subtitle: Designated Hitters

It is said that President Obama doesn't smile much, that he has the sang froid of an attorney-academic. But we will see him as "Smiley" for just this post.

The press has been having their day with the recently-released Prisoner of War U.S. Army SGT Bowe Bergdahl. Some call him a traitor; other say he nuts. The more charitably-minded say it is right that the five supposed Taliban prisoner at Guantanamo Bay be traded for his release, while others claim those released will go right back to being carbuncles on the back of Democracy.

Funny we call Bergdahl a former P.O.W., yet the five men traded for his release were not designated P.O.W.'s; at best, they were called "detainees". When the U.S. was gunning for war, the Taliban leaders (once and current leaders in Afghan's government) were "terrorists". Assuredly, al Qaeda types may be terrorists, but Taliban membership requires meeting a far different bar than does al Qaeda.

But our topic today is not the terminology applied to the incarcerated, or the legitimate leadership of Afghanistan. The topic concerns the intention behind the choice of these five Gitmo detainees.

Rather than seeing the released prisoners all through the narrow glass of radical ideological caricature, what if one or more of them is now something different after 12 years in captivity? What if, after 12 years of mind-breaking incarceration, one or more of these Taliban have been turned?

What if, possibly -- and just that -- one or more is now an agent for the Central Intelligence Agency, and enjoys the best of legend and cover? These men are the real deal, and if they've been turned, that could be one reason for the trade (after Bergdahl's five years in captivity.)

You can tell Ranger if you think he has read one too many le Carre novels.

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