Posted on 06/14/2005 12:55:28 PM PDT by CHARLITE
The retreat is on. Even Republican Sens. Chuck Hagel (Nebraska) and Mel Martinez (Florida) are scurrying along with the panicked pack calling on the U.S. to close its detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.
Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden (Delaware) has been a leader of what should be loosely called the “Release Suspected Terrorists Now!” caucus. Biden says everyone should be let go from Gitmo — except, in a crucial caveat, “Those we have reason to keep, keep.” Ah, there’s the rub.
We captured more than 10,000 people in Afghanistan. Roughly 750 ended up at Gitmo — exactly because we had reason to keep them. The number now is down to 500, as cases are constantly reviewed. Unfortunately, the release process isn’t perfect. Two former detainees were killed in fighting in Afghanistan last year, and another was picked up in a raid on a terrorist training camp. A former detainee in Pakistan was suspected of involvement in the deadly kidnapping of two Chinese engineers.
Does Biden favor recapturing those ex-Gitmo detainees, and if so, where would we put them? Where is he suggesting we “keep” all the Gitmo detainees we have now? If there weren’t Gitmo, they would have to be held somewhere very like Gitmo — unless Biden wants to move them to a penitentiary in his home state of Delaware and afford them rights of American criminal defendants.
Which would effectively mean releasing them. Without Miranda warnings and all the rest of it, Gitmo defendants would very likely escape criminal charges on procedural grounds. Indeed, under our legal system, they would have reason to sue the U.S. government for unlawful imprisonment. In the Gitmo panic, the U.S. is taking a step toward becoming the first country in world history to prove itself incapable of the elemental act of self-defense of simply detaining its enemies.
The close-Gitmo crowd says Gitmo has bad p.r. “It’s become an icon for bad stories,” says Martinez. Of course it has — because people lie about it. Amnesty International calls it a “gulag.” The foreign press makes up lurid tales about it. Newsweek falsely reports that Gitmo guards flushed a Koran down a toilet. Martinez himself would be an icon for bad stories if international organizations and the press spread falsehoods about him.
The U.S. has nothing to be ashamed of. As Rep. Duncan Hunter (R., Calif.), has pointed out, this last Sunday detainees were served orange-glazed chicken, steamed peas and mushrooms, and rice pilaf for dinner — better fare than many U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Detainees are issued Korans and surgical masks in which to hang the holy books in their cells to keep them off the ground.
The call to prayer goes out five times a day, and detainees are instructed how to face toward Mecca. Guards are forbidden from walking in certain areas during prayer time, because the squeaking of their shoes might distract the detainees. They get excellent medical care. One released detainee had records showing he got psychological counseling for “life circumstances issues.”
Time this week reports on an extreme Gitmo case, that of the suspected 20th hijacker who was captured at the battle of Tora Bora. He was subjected to special interrogation methods briefly approved, then revoked, by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Among other things, he was deprived of sleep. He was forced to watch a puppet show satirizing his involvement with al Qaeda and made to stand for the national anthem. A female interrogator invaded his personal space. He was made briefly to stand naked and occasionally told to bark like a dog. This was as bad as it got at Gitmo.
The administration should defend the facility there unabashedly. It should force Democrats to argue that the 9/11 hijackers shouldn’t have women stand too close to them and that rice pilaf isn’t good enough fare. It should make Democrats explain how to fight a war on terror without detaining enemy fighters, and work to stem the panic, rather than surrendering to it.
Rich Lowry is author of Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years.
Should we relocate the facility to Delaware?
Biden's a puss. He's got a John Kerry spine - it's made of jello.
Double the size of Gitmo!
Such a tower of strength.
Do none of these senators (the word makes me gag) understand that if we close Gitmo, the Bad Guys win a big one? If we'd had this crowd in 1941-45, half of us would be speaking German now, and the other half, Japanese.
unless, of course, these liberal weenies want to put them up in their own homes...at their own expense...
how does the kennedy compound sound, abdullah? - /sarcasm
Seriously, how can anyone think that closing Gitmo is going to appease the Amerihaters one iota, on the contrary it will only encourage the Islamofasicsts to work with the Amerihaters to weaken the US's resolve.........
as long as the Republicans are in control
as long as GW Bush is President
as long as Dick Cheney is Vice President
closing Gitmo will not make one whiff of difference in the perception of the world in respect to Americans and anyone who believes it will is naive if not retarded
frankly I think Gitmo is a nice reminder to the Islamofasicsts that unlike under Clinton, there are consequences to their actions now.......
boo, we'll sick a puppy wuppy on you....ARGGHHHHHHHHHHHH
As a rookie senator, Martinez should just STFU about this. Especially since he never would have been elected without W's coattails.
The Rs need to tell all weasel Senators in no uncertain terms:
"THE ONLY PROPOSALS WHICH WILL BE ENTERTAINED FOR CHANGING THE STATUS OF GITMO DETAINEES ARE AS FOLLOWS: (1) YOU CAN OFFER TO HAVE YOUR STATE PAY THE COSTS TO ERECT A NEW DETENTION FACILITY IN YOUR HOMETOWN, IN YOUR IMMEDIATE NEIGHBORHOOD; (2) YOU CAN PROPOSE TO RELEASE ALL OF THE DETAINEES IN YOUR OWN STATE."
The 'critics' of Gitmo are not morally serious or respectable - they can wail and whine all they want to because they believe that these dangerous terrorists are not their problem - just release them overseas and forget about them. Anyone who really understands a little bit about these issues knows that Joe Biden, Chuck Hagel, et al are pompous preening piffle-heads.
Amen! We've got too many congressmen running loose.
biden-biden and hagle I get. They're shiite heads anyway, but what's the deal with Mel?
I've got a compromise, LOL
how about the US will close Gitmo when Castro closes every single real gulag on his island, esp one just down the road from Gitmo
sounds fair to me huh?
or how about we survey the prisoners in that gulag and give them a choice Castro's camp or Gitmo
I know of someone too: the initials are MSM.
boo hoo, boo hoo, but the rest of the world doesn't like us,
they hate us, they really hate us
sayeth Biden et al
so what, this isn't bloody Prom night, it's life or death
They would be singing a different tune if Queen Hillary was in her third term, and handling things the same way as W.
Biden is throwing a bone to "anti-war" (meaning anti-Bush) Democrats. They are all hollering for Bush's impeachment, so Biden has to do something to placate them.
Closing Guantanamo is vindication for the "Americans are war criminals" crowd. That's enough reason to be against it, in my view. I'm tired of people sabotaging our efforts.
Sure we'll close Gitmo ... and set up camps in Nebraska, Florida, and Delaware. Since the folks being held at Gitmo are more or less harmless, I'm sure those Senator's home states won't mind "hosting" them.
Biden and Hagel can never be trusted where the WOT is concerned. The fact either of these two speak means nothing.
Mel, on the other hand, just showed a previously unknown weakness that will be marked against him. Perhaps we should be grateful to know which Senators cannot stand the heat.
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