GITMO Decision

Who should get the benefit of the doubt: our own American Military or suspected terrorists plotting our destruction? According to a 5 to 4 ruling by the Supreme Court on June 12, it’s the terrorists! This decision in the Boumediene v. Bush case is the first-ever application of a constitutional right of habeas corpus in American history for alien combatants held abroad in the course of an ongoing war. The “wisdom” of the Court now decrees that these foreign, enemy combatants, (POWs), are to be treated like U.S. citizens and have the protection of habeas corpus along with all of the other attending benefits of our civil court system. Can you imagine?

It’s insane to contemplate just where the liberals will take this ruling: yellow crime tape in the battlefield, arrest warrants for Osama bin Laden, reading Miranda rights to suicide bombers, granting the right of discovery, calling soldiers as witnesses, filing endless briefs and offering endless appeals! It will practically nullify our ability to prosecute the War on Terror, leaving our nation and our soldiers open to more deadly attacks.

Al Qaeda, decimated on the field of battle by our troops and demoralized by the growing success of the Surge, has just received a big shot in the arm. Hooray for justices Kennedy, Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer coming to the rescue just in time! The liberal wing of the Court has just demonstrated to you why the next presidential election is so desperately important. The swing of just one vote can make a huge difference. It’s expected that at least two justices will likely be replaced in the next presidential term. Obama is on record fully supporting this decision, whereas McCain has called it one of the worst decisions in history. Remember, McCain has promised to appoint justices like Alito and Roberts: two of the dissenters in this case.

Why is this so crucial? The first responsibility of government is the protection of the people. There’s an important and vital difference between the military and domestic law enforcement. History is replete with example after example of how governments, in times of great peril, resort to the appropriate measures of self-preservation and survival. Suspending habeas corpus represents a requirement of the higher law that grants to the state certain privileges of self-defense in face of rebellion, insurrection or national emergency. Desperate times, do indeed, call for desperate measures. It’s apparent, that the common sense of this necessity is well beyond the comprehension of most liberal, activist judges who care more about “process” than “getting the bad guy.” They seem to always frustrate justice by hiding it somewhere, cleverly, in the fine print of the law.

To examine this properly, it’s important to realize how this whole Guantanamo Bay mess got started. Once the military engagement began in Afghanistan, following 9/11, we started collecting enemy combatants on the field of battle and needed some place to hold them. That’s when the Naval Base (GITMO) at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba was established.

This is where the 9/11 terrorists were detained, including the confessed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The attack of 9/11 wasn’t a bank robbery that should be treated like some law enforcement issue. That’s the way Bill Clinton, the ACLU and other liberals would like to conduct our response to the worst attack ever on American soil. This Supreme Court ruling, which puts foreign militants in the category of shoplifters, will undoubtedly cost American lives. Dissenting Justice Scalia warned “it will make the war harder on us, and almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.” Major Kyndra Rotunda, a former Member of the GITMO prosecution team, said the decision “will lead to more dead Americans.” She went on to say, “we already know 5 to 10% of these released end up back on the battlefield interfering with the mission in Iraq. With this ruling we could end up with that ten fold.”

At least 30 of the estimated 395 detainees who have been released from Guantanamo Bay returned to Afghanistan to engage in further hostilities against Coalition forces. One promptly resumed his post as a senior Taliban commander and murdered a UN engineer and three Afghan soldiers. Another murdered an Afghan judge. And, last March, Abdallah Salih al-Ajmi, after being released from GITMO, launched a suicide attack in Mosul.

Since the beginning of the Afghanistan war in 2002, 775 enemy combatants have been brought to GITMO. None of them are American citizens or legal residents. Approximately 240, or just 30%, now remain. More than one fifth have been cleared, but the U.S. officials can’t find a country that’s willing to take them. So, it’s wrong to think that this situation has not been getting resolved, over time, with due process.

The ACLU, the UN and Human Rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch believe we are engaging in torture simply by having an indefinite period of detention for these enemy combatants. The ACLU has been suing the military to obtain the GITMO manual. The fact is, the detainees receive the most systematic and extensive procedural protections afforded to foreign enemy combatants in the history of armed conflict, including unprecedented access to legal representation and U.S. courts. Even the Geneva Conventions require that combatants be released from custody only “after the cessation of active hostilities.” How would Obama suggest that we keep these individuals, once released, from returning to the battlefield?

Detainees at Guantanamo Bay actually have it pretty good. They have received more procedural protections ensuring the fairness of their detention than any foreign enemy combatant in any armed conflict in the history of warfare. Chief Justice Roberts termed it “the most generous set of procedural protections ever afforded aliens detained by this country as enemy combatants.” Detainees have the right to appointed counsel, the right to a summary of the evidence, the right to attend all open portions of the tribunal proceedings, the opportunity to call witnesses, the right to cross-examine and the right to testify. They are judged by a neutral panel of three commissioned officers who make a determination by majority vote on the preponderance of the evidence. These procedures go far beyond what most nations provide and what the Geneva Conventions require.

The GITMO detainees are afforded several considerations. They are provided with Muslim diets, prayer caps, prayer beads, prayer rugs, arrows in their cells pointing to Mecca, calls to prayer five times a day with guards “standing down” out of respect, and up to 22 hours of daily recreation.

What the Supreme Court has done is inexcusable. It will make our war effort much more difficult and jeopardize the lives of our military personnel. This decision will force attorneys to release evidence against enemy combatants to the terrorists’ own lawyers. Detainees will have a legal right of access to classified information. It has emboldened our enemy at a time when we have them on the run. It has put every American at risk from some new terrorist attack within our borders. Keeping the people safe is the first, and most important, job of government. This November, it would serve us well to vote for candidates who will help, not hinder, the proper defense of our great nation! (send comments to WFC83197@aol.com, or mail to POB 114, Jacksboro, TN 37757)