Justus For All

Without knowing all the details of the legal arguments, it just doesn’t seem “American” to hold people without letting them go through due process. I know technically we don’t have to, since they aren’t citizens. But this isn’t just about the legalities of it - there are serious repercussions besides whether we are honoring our Constitution: our world image is severely affected by this and one could argue that it could cause even more attacks.

I would like to think that America is willing to take a small hit in the name of spreading our ideals throughout the world.

I have said before that I am unhappy with the Guantanamo idea. For me, the biggest issue is that if we are going to hold them, it shouldn’t matter legally whether it is in Cuba or in the U.S. If Congress has to act to make that possible, then they should act. They have of course passed some laws on the situation recently, but not to my satisfaction.

I am also unhappy with the perpetual limbo of Guantanamo detainees. I acknowledge that neither Prisoner of War status or the regular Criminal Justice system is appropriate for these detainees, but that seems to me to be a call to codify so clear rules, including probably maximum length of detention and hearings to determine status. Immediately after 9/11 and during the Afghanistan campaign the option we came up with was probably descent. However, a lot of time has passed, enough time to figure out what rules we want to live by in this situation and we haven’t done that. This is primarily a failure of the Bush administration and I am certainly not happy about it.

Unfortunately, most of the criticism of Guantanamo Bay is so hyperbolic and innaccurate that it drowns out any serious criticism of what we are doing there. I blame the mid to far left for that. Both sides seem to prefer to demagogue the situation rather than come up with a real, workable solution.