Guantanamo Bay
It's not always easy to figure out what is the skimmed milk and what is the cream if the big questions of politics. A good example is the question of whether on not the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base at the southeastern end of Cuba should be closed.
Since 2002, the naval base has contained a the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp, for, for persons alleged to be militant combatants captured in Afghanistan and later in Iraq. The Bush Administration maintained that these detainees are not protected under the Geneva Convention. The Supreme Court ruled against this interpretation and the Department of Defense subsequently has stated that prisoners in the future will be entitled to protectiuon under the Geneva Conventions. Most of the detainees still at Guantanamo are not scheduled for trial. As of November 2006, according to MSNBC.com, out of 775 detainees who have been brought to Guantanamo, approximately 340 have been released, leaving 435 detainees. Of those 435, 110 have been labeled as ready for release. Of the other 325, only "more than 70" will face trial, the Pentagon says. That leaves about 250 who may be held indefinitely.
On one hand, former secretary of State Colin Powell insists that the US should scrap Guantanamo Bay and integrate its prisoners into the US prison system as it is an embarassment to America, a perversion to our constitution, and a recruiting tool to the juhadists. On the other hand, there is a legitimate distinction between a drug dealer in Newark and someone planning to deploy a weapon of mass destruction against the United States as well as prisoners of war generally. Nevertheless, that the US judicial system is too fragile to handle even the worst terrorists seems to me to be a unrealistically pessimistic view. Our legal system is far from perfect, and sometimes the innocent are found guilty and the guilty are freed. However, it is still a process that places the burden of guilt on the accuser rather than the defendent and it is a reasonably transparent process. In World War II, a time when Western civilization hung in the balance, prisoners were detained in the United States and were open to Red Cross inspection. The problem with ascribing uniqueness to the so-called war on terror is that it will create nasty precedents that could someday come back to haunt us, as other countries disepnse with such niceties as freedom from torture and trial by jury.
Colin Powell in this case got it right.
Since 2002, the naval base has contained a the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp, for, for persons alleged to be militant combatants captured in Afghanistan and later in Iraq. The Bush Administration maintained that these detainees are not protected under the Geneva Convention. The Supreme Court ruled against this interpretation and the Department of Defense subsequently has stated that prisoners in the future will be entitled to protectiuon under the Geneva Conventions. Most of the detainees still at Guantanamo are not scheduled for trial. As of November 2006, according to MSNBC.com, out of 775 detainees who have been brought to Guantanamo, approximately 340 have been released, leaving 435 detainees. Of those 435, 110 have been labeled as ready for release. Of the other 325, only "more than 70" will face trial, the Pentagon says. That leaves about 250 who may be held indefinitely.
On one hand, former secretary of State Colin Powell insists that the US should scrap Guantanamo Bay and integrate its prisoners into the US prison system as it is an embarassment to America, a perversion to our constitution, and a recruiting tool to the juhadists. On the other hand, there is a legitimate distinction between a drug dealer in Newark and someone planning to deploy a weapon of mass destruction against the United States as well as prisoners of war generally. Nevertheless, that the US judicial system is too fragile to handle even the worst terrorists seems to me to be a unrealistically pessimistic view. Our legal system is far from perfect, and sometimes the innocent are found guilty and the guilty are freed. However, it is still a process that places the burden of guilt on the accuser rather than the defendent and it is a reasonably transparent process. In World War II, a time when Western civilization hung in the balance, prisoners were detained in the United States and were open to Red Cross inspection. The problem with ascribing uniqueness to the so-called war on terror is that it will create nasty precedents that could someday come back to haunt us, as other countries disepnse with such niceties as freedom from torture and trial by jury.
Colin Powell in this case got it right.
Labels: Guantanamo Bay
posted by My Mall and News at
5:14 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home