For the past few days, I have been debating the closing of the Guantanamo Bay Prison with friends and strangers alike. One particularly heated discussion has taken place on the OneUtah blog, where I have been arguing against the closing of Gitmo and the granting of alleged “enemy combatants” access to US federal courts; not to mention, in my opinion, the Bush Administration reserved the rights enumerated by the Constitution and years of practice to reinterpret foreign policy decisions, treaties, and/or international laws/statutes.
The interview that “For the People” had with Professor Anthony Peacock was very enlightening and only fortified my resolve that closing down Gitmo and granting detainees certain rights (which never before existed) is disastrous for the United States in terms of legal precedent, national security, and the future of Executive authority over foreign policy.
This morning I came across an article which I felt articulated my own reservations over the Guanatamo issue.
From Bret Stephens at WSJ:
Guantanamo Is No Blot on U.S. Honor
President Obama’s decision to close the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay within a year is being hailed as a necessary step in restoring the good name and moral hygiene of America. Fundamentally, it tests the proposition that self-esteem can be a form of self-defense.
But the best case against Guantanamo was always inherently odd. It came down to the view that its benefits as a holding pen for the world’s most dangerous men could not outweigh the inevitable PR disaster of removing such men to an exotic locale, a step removed from ordinary conventions of law, prone to lurid speculation about Papillon-like goings on, corroborated by the testimony of inmates trained to cry “torture” whenever incarcerated.
In other words, the smart case against Gitmo is that the stupid case against it was bound to prevail, with first-order consequences for America’s image and self-image, and second-order ones for our ability to inspire, lead and be followed.
Read the complete article here.
A recent poll found that a slim majority of Americans favored the closing of Guantanamo Bay Prison (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/01/21/cnn-poll-americans-split-on-closing-guantanamo-bay-prison/), and that majority clearly is made up of Democrats and Independents; on the other hand, known Republicans are strongly against it.
Yet public opinion may shift in favor of keeping Gitmo, especially in light of cases such as that of Said Ali al-Shihri, a freed Guantanamo detainee who has since become the deputy leader of al-Qaeda’s Yemeni branch.
The case of Said Ali al-Shihri is a sobering one, and should remind Americans that just because someone claims to be innocent (or “tortured,” for that matter), doesn’t mean that it is so. Said Ali al-Shihri professed his innocence over and over, claiming he was heading to Iran “to purchase carpets for his store in Riyadh,” when he was detained. And many Americans assumed that such a story was completely true; another indication that a “majority of detainees were ‘innocent.’”
Now Said Ali al-Shihri is safely hiding among his Al-Qaeda comrades, undoubtedly planning death and destruction.
- Marc
I agree with you about Gitmo, but I think the legal precedent problem you cite is a ship that has already sailed. Thanks to recent Court decisions, the guests at Gitmo have all the rights they’d have if they were at Leavenworth, from my understanding.
It just goes to show that the “we don’t have to charge anyone we hold prisoner” or “they are enemy combatants because we say they are and we don’t need evidence” mentality can turn around and bite us in the butt more than once.
It makes me wonder who is really to blame for Gitmo and what it has spawned…