Gitmo (Yes, Still)

I'm sorry not to have posted for a while and also sorry to return to a familiar theme (Gitmo) even though there is, in theory, so much news to discuss.

However, I'm having a hard time giving a rat's ass about the primaries. The ratio of coverage to information is so punitive as to make tuning in feel like a very unsexy form of masochism. And let's not even talk about the lack of real conversation and debate. (From here on out, I propose that we replace the debates with Talking-Point Doll Theater. Each candidate would be represented by five dolls, each of which speaks a recorded talking point when you tickle its belly.)

One thing I am interested in but not in a position to have an opinion about: are things getting better in Iraq? The reports don't seem nearly so dire of late. Or is it just that we're no longer getting 24/7 IED porn because the American news outlets got distracted by Clinton's moist eyes?

Anyway, here's my gesture at a post, which actually more of a poll for anybody who happens to still be reading the blog.

The Declaration of Independence says that people shouldn't change their governments capriciously but that when a government becomes destructive to basic liberties, people can and should change the government.

To prove that King George had to go, Jefferson wrote this:

The History of the present King of Great-Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.
HE has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
HE has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
HE has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: FOR imposing Taxes on us without our Consent, FOR depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury, [and] * FOR transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences.

Jefferson goes on to complain that the King had "plundered our Seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People." I don't think we're there yet (tho' Iraqis may feel differently), but the other complaints do remind me of Gitmo.

So, on a scale of 1-10, how close are they? (1 = "radically dissimilar," 10 = "identical")

Actual Good News

It feels unbelievably good to write this: Defense Secretary Robert Gates just told members of the House that he advocates closing the Guantanamo prison.

Gates believes that "because of things that happened earlier at Guantanamo there is a taint about it" and because "no matter how transparent, no matter how open the trials, if they took place in Guantanamo, in the international community they would lack credibility." He takes the very sensible stance that, while some of the prisoners are far too dangerous ever to be released, most of them aren't and that they should all get fair trials.

At this moment, Justice staffers are probably having to explain to Alberto Gonzales that he's not empowered to fire Gates.

Amateur Legal Advice for Drug Dealers

So Mike and I agree that prisoner detention at Guantanamo will probably never get the swift attention it deserves and that those responsible for making it a legal and moral morass will never get the punishment they deserve. Robert Gates, the new Defense Secretary, reportedly has wanted to close it since before coming into office, and if the Defense Secretary can't or won't close it, then there's not much chance anybody else will.

Don't worry. This isn't another attack on torture at Guantanamo. (Lord knows we need more of those, but lord knows that nobody with an ounce of influence seems to listen to them or to act on them.) It is, instead, a gradual build-up to an innovative but potentially useful defense for drug dealers, arms dealers, and others who in the discharge of their professional duties may run afoul of the authorities.

Guantanamo as a detention facility exists because the courts have ruled that it's not on US soil, and therefore US legal protections don't apply to inmates held there. I don't buy that for a second. The Guantanamo Naval Base is a heavily fortified military facility that has been under continuous American control since 1903. If something becomes American soil because Americans have worked on it, lived on it, and defended it for generations, then Guantanamo has a better claim to being US soil than do big parts of my home state of Illinois and most of Alaska.

The rationale for saying that Guantanamo isn't US soil is that, technically, we've been leasing it from the Cuban government since 1903. So we're renters, not owners.

But this raises a big set of questions: if US law doesn't apply because Guantanamo isn't the US, then whose law should? Well, for military personnel, I assume it should be the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which applies to all American soldiers wherever they're stationed. But what about non-military personnel--the detainees, the Cuban asylum-seekers who live and even work on the base? Well, they're not on American soil, so it can't be US law. They're not in the US military, so it can't be the Uniform Code. But they are on Cuban soil, so it must be Cuban law. Problem solved.

Of course, that doesn't solve the problem at all. If civilians on the naval base are subject to Cuban law, then we should turn over the al-Qaeda prisoners, the "al-Qaeda" prisoners, and the asylum-seekers to Cuban courts. ("Thank you for seeking asylum from Cuba in Cuba. Your petition for political asylum will be heard by Castro's great-nephew, who will determine whether you will be granted asylum in Cuba or instead deported back to Cuba.")

Since that's clearly impossible, we're back to the Kafkaesque legal fiction that Guantanamo is under US control by force and by treaty but not part of the US. Because, see, we're tenants, not owners.

As bizarre and ludicrous as that may be, it has a potential upside for criminals who get a little sloppy prior to the issuance of a search warrant:

POLICE: We've got you dead to rights, O'Shea. Twenty-three, two-kilo bricks of Oregon's finest pot. Six kilos of uncut coke. Two crates of Chinese AK-47 knockoffs with matching crates of cop-killer bullets. Two shoulder-mounted RPG launchers. And three kilos of weapons-grade plutonium. You're gonna be serving ten consecutive life sentences.
O'SHEA: That' ain't my stuff, man.
POLICE: What are you talking about? We found them in your apartment, badly hidden in your bedroom closet under back issues of Better Housekeeping with your name on all the mailing labels. The bullets were wrapped in a blanket that has your name and "Camp Adventure, 1979" embroidered on it.
O'SHEA: Sure. That's where you found them. In my apartment.
POLICE: So you admit it?
O'SHEA: In my rented apartment. Which, of course, means it's not mine. Anything you find in my rented apartment doesn't belong to me or to my landlord.
POLICE: So who does it belong to, O'Shea?
O'SHEA: I dunno. Cuba?
POLICE: Right then. Men, we're gonna make a little trip to Havana, to arrest Fidel Castro.

Gitmo, Still

I'm listening to Chicago Public Radio's "The Story" right now as Chicago lawyer H. Candace Gorman is talking about Abdul al-Ghizzawi, a Libyan held in Guantanamo. Like pretty much the 395 others still there, he's been there 6 years and has never been charged with a crime.

Al-Ghizzawi is married to an Afghani and was arrested in Afghanistan as "enemy combatant." The first time the government reviewed his status once he got to Guantanamo, he was found NOT to be an enemy combatant. In violation of US government procedure, the government then held a second review and reversed its own decision. (Doing so violated promises that the Justice Department made to Congress that it would never hold a second panel.) As far as Gorman can tell, al-Ghizzawi is innocent and was turned in by somebody who got a bounty for ratting him out. (Like 85% of Guantanamo detainees, Al-Ghizzawi was NOT picked up on a battlefield.)

(For more details about al-Ghizzawi and Gorman see Gorman's blog.)

Innocent or not, Al-Ghizzawi has Hepatitis-B, which he had (though didn't know he had) upon arriving in Guantanamo. He also has tuberculosis, which he contracted in Guantanamo. He's fought for about 6 years to get a lawyer in large part because he's been getting sicker and wants to be released to seek treatment.

That's right: released to seek treatment. Because he's not gettting any in Guantanamo. The US government is saying that he doesn't want treatment. He says that's crazy, of course he does. He has tuberculosis. He has Hep-B. He's jaundiced. He wants to get healthy.

In American prisons, we give mass murders medical care. In our prisons, we give medical care to lying bastard CEOs and CFOs who raided pension funds medical care and, in some cases, made it hard or impossible for their former employees to pay for good medical care. We give all prisoners, regardless of what hideous crimes they've committed, medical care. We should. Because they're human beings. Because we're human beings, and if you withhold medical care from somebody whose life you hold in your hands, you become a monster.

And here's this guy who we haven't even charged with a crime who has a couple potentially life-threatening illnesses. And Justice officials and Guantanamo officials are refusing to let a doctor look at him because, no matter how much he begs for medical help, he doesn't want medical help.

How much longer are we going to put up with this disgusting nonsense happening in our name? How much longer are we going to let paper-pushing and fear-mongering deprive people not just of the freedom we supposedly stand for but even of the right to see a doctor?

If we let it stand much longer, we'll be monsters.