[Dean's World] Dean: "Redefining" Warfare?

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Posted by Dean:
"Redefining" Warfare?
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1150447570.shtml


   A friend recently suggested I read [1]this John Peters piece on the
   recent suicides at Guantanamo Bay. I admit to being slightly moved by
   it, if only by the theoretical implications if not the practical. I
   felt similarly about this [2]similar piece recently posted by Andrew
   Sullivan. Despite the hyperbolic language used by both men, I see no
   massive threat to the world, or to America, in the doings right now
   down in Guantanamo Bay.

   Most of those people were picked up in combat zones, and could just as
   easily have been killed as captured. They were not arrested for
   crimes, they were taken as prisoners of war. Unfortunately, due to
   certain treaty obligations, if we called them prisoners of war we
   might have to release them prematurely. I would hate to see our armed
   forces do that: "catch and release" is not a smart policy for
   terrorists.

   It is also true that if we didn't say they were prisoners of war, we'd
   have had to put them on trial on criminal charges, and in many cases
   that would be hard. So what did the administration in Washington do?
   They punted. They stuck them on an island outside the United States,
   and sat on them for a few years while they figured out what to do.

   To be honest with you, I have a very time shedding a tear over the
   fact that, for some 500 or so souls, the Bush administration stuck
   them in a well-furbished, air-conditioned prison, with good food,
   exercise yards, and full access to religious materials, for some five
   or six years to await final dispensation. Nor am I particularly
   concerned if a few of the more violent ones wound up in conditions
   that were less comfortable than the non-violent ones.

   Is it sad if some innocents were so imprisoned? Yes. [3]C'est la
   guerre. Next time, don't hang out with terrorists.

   I do believe we were in a state of war when these people were picked
   up, and that we are in a state of war now: a fully legal war, declared
   by congressional action with overwhelming bipartisan support. That war
   declaration can be [4]read right here, and has been in effect since
   October 2001. It has yet to be rescinded, nor has anyone in Congress
   (besides a very tiny minority) ever seriously suggested it should be
   rescinded. Not just yet, anyway, and not through two elections so far.
   Some will object that it does not say "war declaration," but multiple
   lawyers and legal scholars have affirmed that it is, Constitutionally,
   a war declaration.

   This being an odd kind of war, the question has always been open--in
   this free, liberal, tolerant democratic society of ours--as to what we
   should do about those captured in this war. Histrionics aside, the
   truth is that we are talking about approximately 500 people rounded up
   instead of simply killed. Since we know with reasonable certainty that
   some of them are terrorists who will attempt to kill others if they
   are released, while others may be harmless, it's always been hard to
   know what exactly to do about them.

   I'm fine with the fact that, after going back and forth with legal
   wranglings for a few years, the administration has seen fit to (A) ask
   the Supreme Court what the most appropriate final disposition of these
   prisoners should be, and (B) said they will close the prison probably
   within the next year or two. All fine by me. That's a thousand times
   better than the treatment of prisoners in the Taliban's Afghanistan or
   Saddam's Iraq would ever have gotten. It's a million times better than
   any prisoner captured by Al Qaeda would ever have gotten.

   There are those who behave as if those at Guantanamo Bay were a bunch
   of innocents rounded up merely so sadistic members of the U.S.
   military could torture them. But to believe that requires not only a
   profound lack of respect for the United States and its military, but
   for America in general. It really does. It's also more than a little
   naive: do you think that if our military were so evil, they would even
   have bothered to put them in a special prison in Cuba? Why? Whatever
   for? Why not capture them, torture them manically, keep them totally
   hidden until they were no longer useful, then shoot them in the head
   and dump them in a mass grave?

   Honestly, if that's how you think the American military works, why
   would we even be having this discussion? These people would be dead,
   and you'd never know they existed at all. They'd meet the fate of a
   Christian in the Taliban's Afghanistan: simply liquidated with no one
   in the outside world ever noticing or caring.

   The folks at Hot Air recently had a rather angry response to Andrew
   Sullivan, more angry than I would have tried to be. But it serves very
   well as response to him, to John Peters, and the folks at Llew
   Rockwell too. I will quote the most salient part here:

     My daughter was in Gitmo for a year as a Master-at- Arms, E4.
     (*dates deleted*) She was injured several times by the inmates
     assaulting her physically. In addition, she knew that when she was
     doing her job by enforcing the rules, she was threatened by the
     prisoners if she had to touch them. They would get her. They mixed
     a cocktail of urine, feces, and semen, and let it fester for days
     until the right moment. They warned her that she was a target and
     then they got her, she was assaulted several times by loads of crap
     thrown at her. She had to undergo shots to prevent what diseases
     that she was exposed to. I donât know why we have women guarding
     men, especially these animals, but that is the policy. My daughter
     is a tough cookie and can handle herself. In her year there she did
     not dishonor herself or our country. When she returned home she had
     a DVD of Gitmo. They made fresh bread every day!! Part of it showed
     how the chefâs prepared special meals for the prisoners. If a
     prisoner refused food the guards were happy to sample the Chicken,
     rice pilaf, yogurt and fresh baked pita bread, while our guys had
     crap food from the mess or had to buy it from Burger King.

     As part of her duties, in the last month she was there, she was
     assigned to the hospital ward. She had to force feed those a..holes
     who offed themselves the other day. They were the meanest of the
     bunch and had to be tied down to get their food. My daughter and
     other personnel voluntarily submitted themselves to the force
     feeding procedure also so that they could do it with the least pain
     for the captives. It was very unpleasant for her but it helped her
     and others to understand how to participate in it with the least
     stress for the recipients. The goal was to keep them alive. She
     feels that the suicides would not have happened on her watch, but
     it was going to happen eventually. These guys are warriors. By
     their death they have achieved a military success in the political
     world. The media marches on.

   I know many members of the American military, including people who've
   worked as professional interrogators in this war, and this matches
   them and their behavior better than suggestions that the U.S. military
   is in the habit of simply picking up random prisoners and mistreating
   them because.... I don't even know what reasons people imagine.
   Because our people are paranoid, hateful, delusional? You'll have to
   tell me. I'm not going to guess.

   All I can say is, you're going to need to give me more evidence than,
   "well look at what happened at Abu Ghraib!" Yeah, look what happened
   at Abu Ghraib: members of the military reported what happened, the
   brass held an investigation, then came forward to the press, releasing
   the photos by their own choice, and arresting and prosecuting the
   wrongdoers.

   Anyway, you can read the [5]rest of the response to Sullivan here.

   I plan to lose no sleep over this matter. History will be the judge
   and, if the actions of other nations and other governments is to be
   compared to this, history will be very kind of America indeed when it
   comes to the period from 9/11/2001 until today. And, I suspect,
   including the next few years as well.

References

   1. http://www.lewrockwell.com/peters/peters15.html
   2. http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/06/hanging_gesture.html
   3. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=C'est+la+guerre
   4. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021002-2.html
   5. http://hotair.com/archives/the-blog/2006/06/15/andrew-sullivan-smears-the-troops/