President Barack Obama has vowed to close the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He has also signed an executive order banning the harsh interrogation techniques"" employed there and elsewhere in the U.S.-led Global War on Terror, bringing the United States back in line with international law, U.S. law, the U.S. Constitution, the Geneva Conventions and the Army Field Manual. Despite the assertions of the Bush administration and its supporters claiming these ""tactics"" are necessary for our security, these changes are two big steps in the right direction. However, important questions remain.
First is the question of what to do with the detainees. It is almost certain that several of these men are dangerous people who will, if released, try to harm the United States. Some may have even felt that way before being incarcerated. The first task will be to determine which prisoners are to be released outright, which are to be tried for acts that were committed in violation of U.S. or international law and, most problematically, which ones are ""enemy combatants,"" whose ""crime"" is to be on the other side in a war. What to do with these men? In a traditional war, prisoners are held until they are either swapped for their counterparts or until the war ends. However, this ""war"" is no more likely to end than is the ""war on crime."" Also, these POWs are not just soldiers, they are ideologues committed to waging war against the U.S. (and they don't feel pity, pain or remorse, and they absolutely will not stop). So, do we just detain them forever? Where? On what grounds? That they hate us?
Second, how do we move forward without dealing with the abuses of the recent past? For seven-plus years ""we"" acted as if the rules don't apply to us. The protections set forth in the Geneva Conventions were ""quaint."" ""Enemy combatants"" have no rights; not even the right to prisoner-of-war status. Techniques which had been recognized as torture were redefined by the Bush administration lawyers as merely ""harsh."" Perhaps most egregiously, detainees were not allowed any of the basic rights of criminal defendants; not the right to counsel, not the right to know charges against them (often times there were no specific charges) and, most important, no right to be brought before a judge and compel the arresting agency to state its reasons for the arrest and detention.
And for what? The torture, we were told, would yield valuable intelligence - as if that would even justify it. Unfortunately, as interrogation experts have repeatedly told us since this became an issue, techniques which are designed to ""break"" someone do not yield reliable information. These techniques are good for one thing only - forcing confessions. The North Koreans used these techniques on American POWs during the Korean War and the North Vietnamese did likewise. Their aim was to extract confessions for propaganda purposes. Is that what we were actually after? So it seems. The lack of evidence against any of these detainees is apparent. They can't even come up with formal charges against most of them, much less a prosecutable case. So somebody decided that forced confessions would serve for evidence. Unfortunately in this scenario, even Bush-appointed judges wouldn't allow this ""evidence"" to be presented.
The denial of any traditional rights of the accused was meant to ensure that nobody would ever know just what was going on there. If they don't have to bring the prisoners before a judge, they don't have to come up with charges until later, after the ""confession"" has been wrung out of the ""terrorist."" Simple, no?
So, what to do? We purport to be a nation of laws, do we not? When people violate our laws, they are prosecuted and, if convicted, punished. This applies to everybody. If there is reasonable suspicion to believe that laws were broken in this case (there is), then an investigation should be launched and the evidence should be followed wherever it shall lead. There is little doubt that it will lead all the way to the top level of the Bush administration. If we do not proceed with an investigation and subsequent prosecution, what exactly will we be saying? That we believe in the rule of law, except when we don't? That no one is above the law, except the people that are? That when the President does it or orders someone else to do it it's not illegal? Can we afford to say any one of these things? No.
