The Next Step

How do you solve a problem like Maria?
How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?
--Maria, Rogers and Hammerstein
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It is all fine and well that we close the Gitmo detainee facility, but what do you do with truly dangerous men like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM)?

KSM can never be prosecuted in Federal court because his treatment following capture would outrage the court and the world. Therefore, he will never be legally convicted.

To boot, he is not a prisoner of war, so what to with him?

Option I: Send him back to Pakistan for legal resolution.

Option II: Release him. And do it right the next time.

Option III: Shoot him when he is trying to escape.

Option IV: Drown him for real.

Option V: Hire him as a Central Intelligence Agency consultant (assuming he is not already on the books.)

These are just options, but it is not in our democratic tradition to keep him locked up indefinitely without charges or a fair and transparent trial. Ranger sees no option but to release him or turn him over to Pakistan. Even the Pakistan card is a weak one.

And since there was no conviction, let's get the reward money back, too.

Bull in a China Shop

[George Bush] is a baffled little creep
--Hunter Thomspson

And now you're stuck with a castrated leader
And I hate the creep
--Athena, The Who

Start a better country where we can get things done
Make a fortune turning sand to silicon
--Desert Island, Magnetic Fields

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The head of the convening authority of military commissions was the first to admit last week that the U.S. tortured Saudi national Mohammed al-Qahtani, that his testimony was coerced and that she would not allow his prosecution to proceed.

The WaPo article covers the string of abuses to which al-Qahtani was exposed (Detainee Tortured, Says U.S. Official.) Head Susan Crawford spoke in direct contravention of President Bush's previous statement that "The United States does not torture." Crawford says the torture "has tainted everything going forward." She also said "it may be too late" to rehabilitate the system which she oversees to fitness, at least in the eyes of the world.

In May 2008, Crawford ordered the war-crimes charges against Qahtani dropped but did not state publicly that the harsh interrogations were the reason. Crawford, a life-long republican, though serving now in a non-partisan position, said:

"It did shock me. I was upset by it. I was embarrassed by it. If we tolerate this and allow it, then how can we object when our servicemen and women, or others in foreign service, are captured and subjected to the same techniques? How can we complain? Where is our moral authority to complain? Well, we may have lost it."

The harsh techniques used against Qahtani, she said, were approved by then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. "A lot of this happened on his watch," she said. Last month, a Senate Armed Services Committee report concluded that "Rumsfeld's authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques for use at Guantanamo Bay was a direct cause of detainee abuse there." The committee found the interrogation techniques harsh and abusive but stopped short of calling them torture.

A side note in the case is that al-Qatani was denied entrance to the U.S. Aug 4 01 by a suspicious immigration inspector. Of al-Qatani Crawford said, "There's no doubt in my mind he would've been on one of those planes had he gained access to the country in August 2001."

The actions of this inspector show that a proactive, protective posture is the first step to successful terrorism counteraction. This was not Counter-Terrorism nor a direct armed action, but it was this nation's first line of defense.

If all U.S. officials executed their protective functions at even a negligible level, 9-11 would not have happened.