Guantánamo and who we are (NYT)

[struggle4progress]

The New York Times
MONDAY, JUNE 20, 2005

It was a relief to watch last week's hearing by Senator Arlen Specter's Judiciary Committee on the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and to hear Specter, a Republican, declare that it was time for Congress to do its job and finally bring the American chain of prison camps under the law.

At the hearing, four military and civilian officials overseeing the processing of prisoners could not, or would not, provide the most basic information - such as how many detainees there are and what countries they came from. Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift, a military lawyer, later courageously testified that he was assigned to represent one of the prisoners for the sole purpose of extracting a guilty plea. He provided a written order that contradicted the denials of the man who assigned him, Brigadier General Thomas Hemingway, who oversees the military tribunals George W. Bush created after 9/11 to screen selected prisoners away from public and judicial scrutiny. <snip>

But the hearing confirmed the urgency of subjecting the detention system to the rule of law - starting with the president's legally dubious invention of "unlawful enemy combatant." J. Michael Wiggins, a deputy associate attorney general, said the administration believed it could hold anyone given that label "in perpetuity" without even filing charges. Excuse us, Mr. Barr, but that sounds like something of great substance.

The administration should, as a first step, shut down the Guantánamo prison. Beyond that, Specter was exactly right when he said Congress must establish legal definitions of detainees from anti-terrorist operations, enact rules for their internment and determine their rights under the Geneva Conventions and American law, including what sorts of evidence can be used against them. Those steps would help fix a system in which prisoners have been declared enemy combatants on the basis of confessions extracted under torture by countries working in behalf of American intelligence. <snip>

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/19/opinion/edguant.php

[GetTheRightVote]

1. So much harm has been done, we need to start soon changing it

:kick: