Solving Gitmo

I hereby proclaim National Adopt-a-Terrorist Week.

Each volunteer family of 4 (minimum, someone must be awake at all times) will receive 20 pair of white cotton gloves, neck armor, an Islamic cookbook, a Koran and the monthly equivalent in old dinars of a US Army Private’s pay.

In exchange, each such family must agree to house one Guantanamo terrorist. ACLU and Amnesty International households preferred. Offer expires when inventory does.

Our theme is provided by Christopher Hitchens with a nice bit in Slate on Gitmo and the hyperventilating “give terrorists rights under the US criminal justice system” cabal:

…The forces of al-Qaida and its surrogate organizations are not signatory to the [Geneva] conventions and naturally express contempt for them. They have no battle order or uniform and are represented by no authority with which terms can be negotiated. Nor can they claim, as actual guerrilla movements like the Algerian FLN have done in the past, to be the future representatives of their countries or peoples. In Afghanistan and Iraq, they sought to destroy the electoral process that alone can confer true legitimacy, and they are in many, if not most, cases not even citizens of the countries concerned. Their announced aim is the destruction of all nonbelievers, and their avowed method is indiscriminate and random murder. They are more like pirates, hijackers, or torturers—three categories of people who have in the past been declared outside the protection of any law…

…An axiom of the law states that justice is more offended by one innocent person punished than by any number of guilty persons unapprehended. I say frankly that I am not certain of the applicability of this in the present case. Mullah Omar’s convoy in Afghanistan was allowed to escape because there was insufficient certainty to justify bombing it. Several detainees released from Guantanamo have reappeared in the Taliban ranks, once again burning and killing and sabotaging. The man whose story of rough interrogation has just been published in Time had planned to board a United Airlines flight and crash it into a skyscraper. I want to know who his friends and contacts were, and so do you, hypocrite lecteur.

You may desire this while also reserving the right to demand that he has a lawyer present at all times. But please observe where we stand now. Alberto Gonzales was excoriated even for asking, or being asked, about the applicability of Geneva rules. Apparently, Guantanamo won’t do as a holding pen until we decide how to handle and classify these people. But meanwhile, neither will it do to “render” any suspects to their countries of origin. How many alternatives does this leave? Is al-Qaida itself to be considered a “ticking bomb” or not? How many of those who express concern about Guantanamo have also been denouncing the administration for being too lenient about ignoring warnings and missing opportunities for a pre-atrocity roundup? I merely ask. I also express the wish that more detainees be brought, like the wretched American John Walker Lindh, before a court.

Entire article: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.

Hitchens is right, so I’ll listen to the whingeing of the sinister side of our political spectrum on this when they tell me what they would do with 300-odd terrorists if we did close Gitmo. NIMBY

If the United States ties itself in knots because of the opinion of the Europeans, insane exaggerations by Amnesty International and the ACLU, or grandstanding Democrat Senators, ask yourself this: Are Iraqi “insurgents” pleased, or otherwise?

Should a charge of aiding and comforting the enemy be tried under US Criminal Law or under the Uniform Code of Military Justice? Before answering, recall that many terrorists would already have have been tried by Military Tribunal if not for ACLU lawyers’ intervention with handpicked judges.

Speaking of the ACLU, why aren’t they suing the Department of Defense over the obvious lack of separation of church and state at Gitmo? Obviously, taxpayer dollars were used to purchase Korans and prayer rugs for the detainees, and DoD personnel have abetted prayer in a Government facility by pointing out the direction of Mecca.

If the Federal Government insisted that any University accepting Federal dollars had to force its staff to wear gloves while handling the Koran, Bhagavad Gîtâ, Guru Granth Sahib, Shruti, Torah, or Bible what would be the reaction?