Terrorists' day in court

13 Nov 2009

With the news that some of the most undoubtedly-guilty-of-one-of-the-most-heinous-crimes-ever people will be tried in NYC, and that Greg Craig (I really like saying that name out loud) is departing the White House, it seems to me there’s a missing piece in the argument over what’s to be done with Gitmo detainees. The GOP whines about trying terrorists, and Bill Kristol has the balls to say that Maj. Hasan shouldn’t be tried.

So what’s the pattern? Conservatives are subverting the due process of law. They’re appealing to the gut reaction of “Oh, you want to try this guy? You must think he’s innocent.” I think that people like Kristol honestly think that it’s okay not to give him a fair trial. That’s because they don’t understand the Constitution. Or they don’t understand its importance. Either way, they’re trying to paint Democrats as terrorists sympathizers.

Enough of this. President Obama’s strategy of avoiding making enemies of Republicans at all costs has gone too far. It’s time for him to make a statement about Guantanamo. Here’s how it should start:

Fellow Americans, I’m here today to talk about something very important. Housed in our prison in Guantanamo Bay are approximately 200 detainees. Some were wanted in connection to various crimes. We have gathered and inherited definite evidence against some of them. Others have been held for years without even the most basic right that we accord to all suspects, the right of habeas corpus, to know the reason for imprisonment.

My administration has made it a priority literally from day one to end this operation. I’d like to tell you about where we see that mission heading in the future.

First of all, let me make something abundantly clear. We do our country a great disservice by continuing to violate the rights of these detainees. Now, I now many of you have qualms about affording people whose names are associated with such terrible acts the same rights we afford each other. I understand this. And I too have deep moral conflicts about the appropriateness of our judicial system as it can be applied to these detainees.

But I am here today to make an unequivocal statement that those people will be afforded just and speedy trials. Tantamount to our country’s desire to preserve its image as a beacon of freedom and democracy is our ability to apply our moral codes equally to all. The continued infringement of the rights of those detainees detracts from our country’s ability to hold others to the same standards. We must be the example we wish others to follow.

So, you get the idea for the flowery rhetoric. He’s good at that, so I think that if he just decided to do it, he could *easily *win the support of most of the country. Obviously, there will be people who don’t want to hear it. And you know what? It doesn’t matter. The lesson that the LGBTQ equality movement is learning from endless failed ballot initiatives, which confirmed by the women’s suffrage movement and the Civil Rights Act is that you can’t put people’s inalienable rights on a referendum. The Constitution does not say that “all free, unaccused, unimprisoned men” are created equal, and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, it says that “all men” are. The Constitution is important precisely because of how universal it is. It’s about people, not just free citizens. We can’t treat these detainees like subhumans anymore.

My proposal is this: Create an independent federal comission of military, terrorism, legal, etc., experts, to review the cases of every single detainee there. That commission will have no decision-making authority, but it will give a recommendation to the Executive branch on which of those detainees should be brought to court. Because they were detained and imprisoned in illegal and unprecedented manners, we need to think outside the box. I’m not a Constitutional scholar, but I do think it would be constitutional to just release all of them. So that’s an option, but I’d consider it a pretty bad one, because a fair amount of them probably do have terrorist connections, and just letting them back out into the wild would legitimately be dangerous (whereas housing them in high-security federal prisons is not, unlike what John Boehner would have you believe). Realistically, we can’t try all of them. There are too many, and the evidence against them has been too poorly handled. For a lot of them, a trial would just be a huge waste of time and money, as they’d just end up walking.

So the panel will make recommendations not only on if they should be tried, but where and how. KSM? Killed people in NYC, so they’re trying him there. Someone was detained for plotting against soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan? Try them in a military tribunal. We’ve spent too long making blanket statements about these people, calling them all terrorists, all evil people. It’s time to treat them with the same respect and investigation that we do all other criminals.

I’m really tired of being told that my opinions on this make America less safe. For god’s sake, we have the highest incarceration rates in the entire world, and the GOP would like us to think that somehow an extra 200 guys are going to be a problem? Again, Steve Benen says it: “…are we back to Republican fears that terrorist suspects are comic-book villains with super powers?”

Seriously, guys. They’re just people. They’re not terrorists yet. They’re not criminals yet. That is the entire point of the constitution.

Republicans either don’t get it, or don’t care. Worse, they don’t care that they don’t get it. In their insular little political “us-and-them” philosophy, there’s no room for liberal elitist “human rights” issues. No room for international credibility. Just America the brave, and the craven enemy. It’s so easy being a right-winger (KFJ’s excellent post on what this means for the Israel debate is totally applicable here too).

I have zero interest in adopting the us-and-them tactic. It’s stupid and regressive. But that shouldn’t prevent us from calling out those who do.