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Subject:
RE:gulag in Guantanamo
Phoenix Rising
5/11/2003 4:20:55 AM
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If we're talking about establishing precedents, we should also be concerned about the precedent of locking people up without trial upon suspicion of terrorism. Remember, even a few American citizens were put away in this fashion during the Afghan campaign, though I think they've gotten away from it recently--Sami al-Arian is going to get his day in court, anyway, it seems. This could even be a plus for the government, too, if done right ... it will be very interesting to see who comes out of the woodwork to support him, and how they react to any evidence brought against him; I have a sneaky suspicion it's going to be very Baghdad Bob-esque, and that could turn into good PR for the administration ... the whole "this is the kind of people we're dealing with" message.
Also, regarding precedents, remember that in the realm of the courts, anyone has the opportunity to set precedent by making a good argument, but in the real world, anything America does has *much* more precedential value than anything Afghanistan could ever do. That means that we do play by different rules, unless you're of the school that says the long run is utterly irrelevant. However, don't forget that the rules allow for an awful lot, that they're flexible, and that we helped write a lot of them in the first place. It's quite possible to play by the rules and still win--and that while we do have the power to rewrite the rulebook by virtue of our status, regardless of how ardently the Axis of Weasels may deny that fact, that ability should not be used capriciously. AFAIK, the term "unlawful combatant" was an American fabrication and appears nowhere in the conventions.
I still fail to understand our reluctance to play by those rules considering that they're *overwhelmingly* in our favor. Article 146 of the convention on protection of civilians, for example, demands that *all* signatories to the Conventions, not just those involved in combat, search for and detain within their territories anyone for which a prima facie case can be made for guilt of "wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person ... wilfully depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed in the present Convention, taking of hostages and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly." This looks like damn strong firepower to use against anyone suspected of harboring Saddam Hussein, bin Laden, or Omar.
Inevitably, there would be some countries that would give us the same song and dance Saddam gave us for 12 years regarding whether or not a good "prima facie" case were made, or whether we had met the standards of proof of any of the other myriad articles that we're on the good side of; Syria might ask us to "prove" Saddam was in Syria the same way Saddam asked us to "prove" that we had WMD.
At that point, I'm quite willing to shrug and say, "Well, we don't keep a $400bn military around for show. En garde." I don't have the Old European-style psychic allergy to the very concept of the use of force; far from it. However, if it's possible to win by the rules, then I don't see any reason to not do so, much less to undermine those rules.
--Phoenix Rising |
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