Gitmo is Not a Gulag

Gitmo is not a gulag and the hysterical torture allegations remain unsubstantiated

The heady first 100 days are over and reality has set in; we may not be shuttering Guantanamo after all. Arthur Herman has written the most coherent summary of the Gitmo issue to date. Like Dick Cheney, who cleaned the President's clock on this issue, he presents a cogent defense of the facility.

The whole Gitmo as gulag trope was a socialist myth anyway. The International Red Cross and various human rights organization have almost carte blanche access to the facility as they do to all US military-run prisons. While working at a prison in Southern Iraq I used to run into snooty Euro Red Cross workers on my way to breakfast. They would sneer at me and my buds if we made eye contact with them. They clearly had contempt for all things American and would not hesitate blowing the whistle on us.

Indeed, what we should do is turn this into an International Model Detention Facility, complete with liberal watchdogs and European Criminal Court judges with powdered wigs. We must bring legitimacy to the Global War on Terror (or whatever the O-ministration is calling it nowadays) and this is just the way to do it.

Either Europe can take its stinking, scraggly-bearded rabble back, or it can join us in ushering in a new era of hope and change for the imprisoned at Guantanamo.

Commentary - Arthur Herman

Hyperpower and Hypocrites

Christian Science Monitor reports that it's put up or shut up time for the Euro-weenies who have been clamoring for us to shut down Guantanamo. The prospect of having to actually follow up their lofty and sanctimonious words with actual actions has thrown the continent into a diplomatic dither.

It sounds like Europe's dream scenario. Yet European states are not rushing to take detainees, a step considered essential to closing the camps.

Rather, on the eve of a Jan. 26 meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels that takes up the question, there's more temporizing than unity – and a possibility that some states that say they will take inmates considered wrongly detained may hide behind bureaucratic moves to tie such help to a collective EU agreement. Such agreement may be difficult.

Lets see what perfidious maneuvers and diplomatic arabesques Olde Europe employs to keep from repatriating some of the tanned and well-rested terrorists that their societies have spawned.

Will men with strong British names like Mohammad and Farook ever play darts on the old sod again? A certain Herr Al-Jihadi, of the old and venerable Hamburg Jihadis, fears he may never again cast his murderous, bushy-browed gaze upon the land of Beer and Bratwurst.

Think I'm being too hard on our cowardly continental cousins?

Try this on for size. Remember rendition? You know, secret CIA flights (probably in black planes with meat hooks hanging from the ceiling) that carried to their doom poor innocent men who accidentally stumbled onto the battle field with grenade launchers in their hands? Remember talk about how the US had turned the world into our own global Gulag Archipelago? Why aren’t we hearing about that anymore?

Here’s your answer: Old Europe was complicit all along.

A new EU assessment of how the guidelines are being applied acknowledges that some governments have accused the Union of double standards because some of its member states have been implicated in the so-called extraordinary rendition scheme operated by the Central Intelligence Agency of the U.S.

David Miliband, the British foreign secretary, confessed in February that two CIA planes used in the kidnapping and torture programme had landed in Diego Garcia, a British-controlled island in the Indian Ocean, in 2002. This was a reversal of previous denials by the London government that CIA flights had landed on British territory.

Several other EU governments, including Germany, Sweden, Portugal, Ireland and Italy have been accused of allowing their countries be used by the CIA for covert operations. Poland and Romania have both been criticised by the European Commission for their reluctance to provide information about claims that the CIA ran secret detention centres on their soil.

Here's another tidbit: Italy's intelligence service cooperated willingly with the nefarious Bush-Cheney global torture plan carried out illegally by the US Gestapo, also known as the CIA:

MILAN, Italy (AP) - An Italian judge has suspended a kidnapping trial linked to the CIA's extraordinary rendition program after the government said testimony could be a threat to Italy's national security.

The Milan trial involves 26 Americans and five Italian intelligence agents charged in the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric. Most of the Americans are CIA agents.

The judge on Wednesday suspended the trial until March 18 in the expectation that Italy's Constitutional Court would have resolved the national security issue by then. A ruling from the high court is due March 10.

Both Premier Silvio Berlusconi and his predecessor Romano Prodi have warned testimony in the case could compromise operations between Italian spy services and the CIA.

So what do we do with this human debris we've scooped up from GWOT battlefields?

I think we should turn them over to the men and women in powdered wigs at the Hague. They could then make a shambles of international justice like Slobadon Milosevic did with long-winded angry tirades. Remember that? The Euros stood around looking helplessly at one another and flapping their arms futilely in response.

Anyway, I think the Hague is the perfect place to wrap this whole debacle up. Wasn’t it Karl Marx who said something about history repeating itself, first as tragedy, secondly as farce?

Links:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0123/p05s01-woeu.html
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/202927,nine-prisoners-released-from-guantanamo.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/16/AR2006101601339.html
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42218
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D94R7LI00&show_article=1&

Gone-Tanamo

President Obama will close Guantanamo. It's just a matter of time. We should forcibly repatriate the prisoners and avoid the inevitable legal farce that will ensue. That won't happen because Europeans are shameless hypocrites.

European Hypocrisy

Earth Times reported a few months back how we had just returned six more well-fed, tanned and rested Guantanamo prisoners back to the 8^th century house of horror societies they came from. One paragraph from the article stood out:

“About 270 detainees are still being held at Guantanamo. The Defense Department said it was still looking for countries that would take in about 65 prisoners deemed eligible for release. The US has released about 500 prisoners since 2002, but has often struggled to find countries that will accept the detainees and sought guarantees that they will not be tortured."

Europe clamors for us to shut down Guantanamo, but studiously turns the other way when we address the subject of repatriating the European ones back to the old continent.

Men with strong British names like Mohammad and Farook may never play darts on the old sod again. A certain Herr Al-Jihadi, of the old and venerable Hamburg Jihadis, fears he will never again cast his bushy-browed gaze upon the land of Beer and Bratwurst.

While refusing to ease the plight of their imprisoned countrymen, the Euros also insist these poor men from delightful Middle Eastern and South Asian countries may not be repatriated for fear they will be tortured. So here we are in a logical cul-de-sac: Can’t keep them in prison, can’t turn them loose. The Euros and the Internationales are good at scolding bad behavior, but come up a little short on solutions.

I don’t know what the alternative is. They sure as hell can’t be turned loose on American soil (of course, that is the conclusion the Bush-haters have steered us into.) I don’t even want them stinking up American jails.

Let's Try Them in an International Criminal Court at The Hague

Maybe we could turn them over to the men and women in powdered wigs at the Hague. Things have been pretty quiet there since Slobo kicked the bucket. For those who need a reminder, the Clinton administration cast Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic as the demon in the Balkan tragedy. He was perfect for the part: He looked mean, had an evil-sounding name, and had directed the killing of Muslims (just ignore the fact that some of his victims were terrorists.)

We dragged him to The Hague, where he made a shambles of international justice with his angry, long-winded angry tirades. The Euros stood around looking helplessly at one another and flapping their arms futilely in response. Anyway, I think the Hague is the perfect place to wrap this whole debacle up.

Wasn’t it Karl Marx who said something about history repeating itself, first as tragedy, secondly as farce?

The only alternative left is to interrogate future captives on the battlefield then shoot them dead after getting what we want out of them. There’s probably some international law against that…

Remember rendition? You know, secret CIA flights (probably in black planes with meat hooks hanging from the ceiling) that carried to their doom poor innocent men who accidentally stumbled onto the battle field with rocket launchers in their hands? Remember talk about how the US had turned the world into our own global Gulag Archipelago? Why aren’t we hearing about that anymore?

Here’s your answer: Old Europe was complicit all along.

It’s a game we play. The US plays good cop, and bad cop, while Europe plays the moral cop, blowing the whistle on the actions we take to protect ourselves and them. It’s all part of the deal: European governments cravenly cooperate in private while criticizing us in public.

If the Euros and the Internationales want us to adopt humane (according to them) policies, then they need to grow up and take some responsibility for their actions, or inaction, as the case may be. We can argue the legalities of Guantanamo, but let’s get all the cards on the table first. Fritz and Basil and Pierre still have a few up their grubby sleeves.

Links:
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/202927,nine-prisoners-released-from-guantanamo.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/16/AR2006101601339.html

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42218

GWOT Platitudes

George Monbiot, in the Guardian, says Guantánamo Makes Us All Less Safe
Which leads me to ask: Would you feel safer if we released them all into your back yard?
I don't think I'll be getting an answer anytime soon.

This is predictable America-hating claptrap disguised as concern for human rights. Concerned world citizens don't trust the Bush administration, but invest complete credulity in every nutball who "accidentally" stumbled onto a battlefield with a bazooka in his hands.
Alan Dershowitz provides a nice counterpoint to the soft-headed critics. He points not to right or wrong, but to gaps in current law that responsible governments need to cooperate on closing if we are going to deal with international terrorism in a humane fashion. Unfortunately, too many people would rather engage in America bashing.

Given the scope of our operations since 9/11, it is inevitable that some abuses have occurred, and each one is a shame. But misfortunes are bound to happen when you're forced to go it alone because your feckless friends have abandoned you or are secretly sabotaging your efforts.

The Hyperpower and the Hypocrites

Earth Times reports we just returned six more well-fed, well-rested Guantanamo prisoners back to the 8^th century societies they came from. One paragraph from the article stood out:

“About 270 detainees are still being held at Guantanamo. The Defence Department said it was still looking for countries that would take in about 65 prisoners deemed eligible for release. The US has released about 500 prisoners since 2002, but has often struggled to find countries that will accept the detainees and sought guarantees that they will not be tortured."

Europe clamors for us to shut down Guantanamo, but turns the other way, studiously inattentive, whistling absentmindedly, hands in pockets when we address the subject of repatriating the European ones back to the old continent. Men with strong British names like Mohammad and Farook may never play darts on the old sod again. A certain Herr Al-Jihadi, of the old and venerable Hamburg Jihadis, fears he will never again cast his bushy-browed gaze upon the land of Beer and Bratwurst. While refusing to ease the plight of their imprisoned countrymen, the Euros also insist men from delightful Middle Eastern and South Asian countries may not be repatriated for fear they will be tortured. So here we are in a logical cul-de-sac: Can’t keep them in prison, can’t turn them loose. The Euros and the Internationales are good at scolding bad behavior, but come up a little short on solutions.

I don’t know what the alternative is. They sure as hell can’t be turned loose on American soil (of course, that is the conclusion the Bush-haters have steered us into.) I don’t even want them stinking up American jails. Maybe we could turn them over to the men and women in powdered wigs at the Hague. Things have been pretty quiet there since Slobo kicked the bucket. For those who need a reminder, the Clinton administration cast Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic as the demon in the Balkan tragedy-drama. He was perfect for the part: He looked mean, had an evil-sounding name, and had directed the killing of Muslims (just ignore the fact that some of his victims were terrorists.) We dragged him to The Hague, where he commenced to making a shambles of international justice with his long-winded angry tirades. The Euros stood around looking helplessly at one another and flapping their arms futilely in response. Anyway, I think the Hague is the perfect place to wrap this whole debacle up. Wasn’t it Karl Marx who said something about history repeating itself, first as tragedy, secondly as farce?

The only alternative left is to interrogate future captives on the battlefield then shoot them dead after getting what we want out of them. There’s probably some international law against that…

Remember rendition? You know, secret CIA flights (probably in black planes with meat hooks hanging from the ceiling) that carried to their doom poor innocent men who accidentally stumbled onto the battle field with rocket launchers in their hands? Remember talk about how the US had turned the world into our own global Gulag Archipelago? Why aren’t we hearing about that anymore?

Here’s your answer: Old Europe was complicit all along.

It’s a game we play. The US plays good cop, and bad cop, while Europe plays the moral cop, blowing the whistle on the actions we take to protect ourselves and them. It’s all part of the deal: European governments cravenly cooperate and egg us on in private while criticizing us in public. If the Euros and the Internationales want us to adopt humane (according to them) policies, then they need to grow up and take some responsibility for their actions, or inaction, as the case may be. We can argue the legalities of Guantanamo, but let’s get all the cards on the table first. Fritz and Basil still have a few up their sleeves.

Links:
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/202927,nine-prisoners-released-from-guantanamo.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/16/AR2006101601339.html

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42218