"What do you do with the people who are there?"

By Lt Col P

A very good question, when it comes as a riposte to the utterance, "Guantanamo should be closed!"

This is the subject of an interesting article in today's WaPo, my quaint and amusing local paper. Innocuously titled, "U.S. Faces Obstacles To Freeing Detainees," the article points out that many of the Europeans that clamor loudest for the closure of our detention camp also balk at having their nationals and legal residents returned to them. Ha! I bet they do.

I have a very good idea of what we should do with them, but I'll keep it to myself.

Frankly, this is the sort of policy waffling that is making it impossible for the West to form an effective coalition to fight the war. Old Europe wants it both ways: skewer the U.S. for snatching dangerous people and putting them in a nice little place where they can be carefully watched and perhaps interrogated for tidbits of information, but then pull a thanks-but-no-thanks when the U.S. says in effect, "OK, you take them." As the Canadian defense minister pointed out, the same impulse is at work in the NATO force in Afghanistan: France, Germany and Spain can get credit for having large contingents there, but they can also finesse their way out of offensive operations, at a time when we need every trigger-puller we can get out on the line.

And they ask me why I drink.

October 17, 2006 04:58 AM The Long War

Comments

Maybe its because even though they can be released as they are innocent (that means no charges for you fascists), the US still wants them locked up...and that costs money which we won't be paying for. Not to mention do you think that people who have been locked up for several years with no justification might have some issues to deal with.

madmatt · October 17, 2006 07:04 AM

Simple. Put them on planes bound for their countries. Planes develop engine trouble. Pilots bail out.
The hardcore jihadists can never be released. They aren't soldiers with a command and control structure that will tell them to stand down after the war, a la Germany & Japan post WWII.

rbj · October 17, 2006 07:08 AM

Apparently they are welcome at madmatt's home. Release them either to the Iraqii Army or the Afghanis allied with the US, with detailed instructions on what they did; where they were captured; where they are from;what training they have received. I can assure you that they will no longer be problematic. By the way, I noticed that the Iraqii's have had no problem baring the Red Cross from Abu Ghirab once they took over running the prison. If people think that the detainees at Gitmo are being violated by our country and/or our military, they don't know much about how Islams treat prisoners.

Pat · October 17, 2006 08:14 AM

One could say there's some hypocrisy among the Europeans; one could also say that they aren't really willing to take on these people with strings attached (like surveillance) but that they are still and always have been opposed to Gitmo.

RBJ, you make the extremely basic logical mistake of assuming that everyone in Gitmo is in fact a terrorist. They are not and that is indisputible at this point. Even if had no clue whatsoever, it would still be absurd to assume that every single person we put in Gitmo is a terrorist, just as it would be absurd to assume that everyone in jail in America is guilty of the crime they were convicted of. And, why does anyone have to even explain this to you?

Pat-"Islams" in our country treat prisoners just fine. "Islams" in decrepit, despotic third world countries probably do not. Do you see the difference?

Xanthippas · October 17, 2006 08:33 AM

Sure Xanthippas, they may not be 'terrorist' but that does not mean they are 'innocent'. Don't make the mistake of comparing Gitmo to an American prison. They are not morally equivalent. Our prisons are full of citizens that were found guilty by their peers. They remain guilty until exhonorated by an appeal trial, not before. Gitmo, on the other hand, is full of guys who had guns that were aimed at US Citizens and our allies. I don't think we walked around Afghanistan and Iraq randomly picking people up do you?

Dan Irving · October 17, 2006 09:37 AM

let them swim back!

Lt Col Dan · October 17, 2006 10:00 AM

War with the Afghani and Iraqi governments is at an end. Give them over to the new Afghani and Iraqi governments. Let them decide according to thier laws what happens next.

Its fair, its simple, and its probably a whole hell of a lot worse then lazing your life away at Camp Gitmo.

Anonymous · October 17, 2006 10:40 AM

"I don't think we walked around Afghanistan and Iraq randomly picking people up do you?"

Actually, the conclusion of American officers in Afghanistan in 2002 - 2003 was that that was exactly what was happening: people were being trawled up on no evidence whatsoever (in some cases for the American bounty) and shipped to Guantanamo.

You're assumming a competence on the part of their American captors that doesn't actualy exist.

Stephen MacEwan · October 17, 2006 11:10 AM

I apologize ahead of time for hurting anyone's feelings, but I was wondering why they couldn't be weighted down and dropped from helicopters into the ocean?

goesh · October 17, 2006 11:19 AM

Actually we have no idea who is in Guantanamo - how many are terrorists, how many are combatants, and how many are just people who've been rounded up and stuffed in a hole.

And we won't know until the Bush administration allows them to actually be investigated.

Anyone who's spent any time dealing with bureaucracies in *any* capacity knows how easily mistakes can be made and just shoved on through the system. Wrong people have been accused, are being accused right now, and will be accused in the future. With human fallibility, this is simply a statistical certainty.

And if the results of the bureacracy aren't ever looked at, the situation can't ever be fixed.

This is the other benefit of applying law and justice concepts like 'Habeus corpus' and the right to know the evidence against you; it not only protects the innocent, it makes sure that the Government involved is going after the *right* people.

So here's what you do with all the people there:

a) look at all the evidence against them.
b) release those with no evidence against them - and find out how the hell tehy got in there.
c) enforce accountability, including changing policies and firing the incompetent in the bureacracy who are responsible for innocent people getting there
d) try the rest of 'em in a fair court of law - because if they're so guilty they've got to be stuffed down a hole to protect us, then there is no lack of evidence for their guilt.

These principles of justice have kept our nation through it's violent birth pains, a terrible civil war (Lincoln went back to Congress every year to have his negation of Habeus Corpus reviewed and approved), two world wards and innumerable smaller wars, police actions and conflicts.

To drop them because of some punks with box cutters is humiliating and degrading to the sacrifice of our fathers who died for the nobility of our country.

jim · October 17, 2006 11:37 AM

Sure, Xanthippas, I am quite happy to conced that there are some entirely innocent people swept up in terrorist roundups. Are you willing to concede that there are some very dangerous terrorists there as well? People who, the minute they get the chance, would gladly kill as many Americans as possible? And why would anyone need to point that out to you (you know, condescension does nothing to advance your argument.)

I've got nothing against sifting through evidence to see who is innocent and who is dangerous. The problem is that evidence collected on a battlefield is not of the pristine US courtroom quality. Nor are those captured enemy soldiers -- they are terrorists who deliberately attack civilians and do not wear uniforms.

So what do you do with ones you've decided are still dangerous? Some of those released have been recaptured in Afghanistan fighting against the Afghan gov't and US.

rbj · October 17, 2006 12:23 PM

Give them a plane ride back to their country of origin, then drop them off, at say 30K feet over their destination. These are not some poor oppressed victims of our society! The ACLU be damned if they think these creeps be deserving of protection from the U.S. Constitution. As the U.S. Constitution only applies to Citizens that are legally on our soil! I don't recall anywhere on this document where it's called the "World" Constitution. These sub-humans have been treated better than we treat ANY prisoner in our own penal system! They are enemy combatants, combatants that our biggest mistake was to not make them dead! And, legitimate prisoners that treat our Marines stuck keeping their sorry arses alive like crap, they do horrid things to our guys! The absolute idiots on the left would have you pity them, how can people grow up and face society so ignorantly? Again this stuff totally stumps me, how have we surrendered our One-Nation will on the altar of Liberalism, and religious zealotry!

Allen · October 17, 2006 02:53 PM

my roommate back at VMI spent a year down there (was part of frequent commenter Joel H's unit).

He came back thoroughly convinced of the cosmic justice of the place, but did concede some innocents may have fallen through the crack.

I'm not sure why people feel that wrongful imprisonment started when we opened camp X-Ray though. It's unfortunate, but it happens.

John · October 17, 2006 03:06 PM

ps- who asks you why you drink??

John · October 17, 2006 03:31 PM

Its easy. Court-martial them and shoot them. People are too squeamish these days.

Eric Blair · October 17, 2006 05:34 PM

"What do you do with the people who are there?"

Prosecute the 10% that are guilty, and let the innocent 90% go. What else are we going to do? Keep them all in detention until death?

tom · October 17, 2006 06:43 PM

Tom, do you have any evidence to back up your claim that 90% of the prisoners in Gitmo are innocent?

If you try to return them to their country of origin people will claim that the U.S. government is intentionally sending the inmates to be tortured and killed in their native land.

Maybe it's time to ask ourselves what the founding fathers would do. My bet would be summary execution.

mike · October 17, 2006 08:15 PM

George Washington said "cowards die a thousand times before their death."

Then he executed them.

Washington was hard core.

John · October 17, 2006 08:25 PM

the guillotine solves so many problems.

Knightraptor · October 17, 2006 08:53 PM

Lt Col P:"...but I'll keep it to myself."

What a tough guy. Congratulations on your heroic, front-line dog-whistling, P, and thanks for your total lack of sacrifice.

Are you going to hide behind these impotent chicken-hawks your whole life? If you want the prisoners to be executed, then grow at least one testicle and say so.

mike, can you provide any evidence that you didn't try to kill Americans?

Railroad Stone · October 17, 2006 08:57 PM

At the time, Maj P was in Fallujah for the 2004 battle Railroad. Check aim before you fire there cowboy.

mike, can you provide any evidence that you didn't try to kill Americans?

This question didn't make any sense to me, please clarify.

John · October 17, 2006 10:33 PM

Drop them out of planes? That is so funny.

Funny how several of your bloggers had the same "solution". And I bet they call themselves Christ-ies.

But it's like Iraq, we've screwed it up so badley there's no solution but "stay the course". No wonder 70% of the people in this country are sick of you all.

tommo · October 18, 2006 07:46 AM

And morons like you who shoot their mouths off behind the security of a computer are the reasons why the vast majority of the military still won't vote Democrat, even though it's us that's ACTUALLY FIGHTING this war whether we support it or not.

Joel · October 18, 2006 09:25 AM

Tommo, what are you talking about??

John · October 18, 2006 09:36 AM

What a lot of you don't realize is that not everyone gets an express ticket to the Caribbean. If 2ndLt Lightning leads his platoon on a raid in Iraq that nets a suspected insurgent, we don't immediately load the suspected bad guy up and ship them to Camp X-Ray. Most of them stay in country, or even at the regional level. Many get released and are back on the streets within a few days - at least that was my experience in Jazirah. Now, I don't know what the criteria are for sending someone to Gitmo - I was never involved in that process - but if we're going to ship someone halfway around the world, you can probably bet that we've already determined that we're going to get a hefty return on that investment, i.e. intel on major international terrorist groups such as AQ.

Recommended reading: Patterico's interview of an Army nurse who worked at Guantanamo and had regular interaction with the prisoners.

Lightning · October 18, 2006 09:58 AM

John, it's really very simple. mike cannot possibly prove that he has never tried to kill Americans, just like you can't prove that you've never raped a dog, and the prisoners in Cuba can't prove they've never been terrorists.

Think about it for just a second, please. Oh, and I'm not a cowboy. No offence, I just prefer women.

Only 3 years ago, I would have shut the fuck up rather than disrespect any veteran, regardless of any crazy bullshit they might spout. Sadly, while P was in Fallujah, a new precedent was set back home which means that being a veteran doesn't count for shit anymore!

Hey, I didn't like it either, but he'll have to take it up with the swift boaties.

Railroad Stone · October 18, 2006 05:23 PM

that's some pretty radical stuff there railroad. You might want to reconsider your point on veterans.

John · October 18, 2006 05:31 PM

Please don't feed the trolls. It only makes them uglier.

Preacher · October 18, 2006 06:52 PM

Reconsider? Great input, John. Very compelling.

Railroad Stone · October 18, 2006 09:48 PM

a point so bad that it disproves itself doesn't require a counterpoint.

John · October 20, 2006 12:18 PM

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