'Giving Geneva Rights To Terrorists'-- A False Debate

I was listening to KCRW's 'Left, Right, and Center' this afternoon and heard a typical piece of beltway thinking in regards to the political fallout of the President's proposed torture/tribunals legislation. Tony Blankely, the show's right, stated that "my guess is that when the polls come out, you'll see something like 55 or 60% of the public agreeing with the President's position".

The idea that this is an issue that benefits the President or that people will support his position is only true to the extent that it has been debated on Bush's terms and not addressed the more troubling outcome of what the President is attempting... a blank check to engage in the kind of torture already prohibited by military law and Congress and to set up the kangaroo courts only marginally different than those that the Supreme Court already dismissed.

The official conservative spin on this issue (parroted on the few conservative blogs I found today that would even acknowledge Bush's defeat on this by his fellow Republicans) is that 'terrorist rights' advocates like Powell or McCain want to 'give Geneva rights to terrorists'. But that is a false debate... if only because it uses the term 'terrorist' in an extremely broad sense for starters. To set the debate in these terms is the reason that the President moved Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others from his secret CIA prisons to Guantanamo. By shoving the scariest terrorists in the face of Americans (the only thing we have to fear is... everything), the President hopes to make it politically impossible to oppose his draconian measures. There was no other reason why these suspects needed to be transferred at this time. Even Bush's most loyal defenders didn't deny this political reason for the actions when the story broke; rather, they bragged about Bush the Genius. They will make the whole debate about KSM and the others, but that's like using a drop of water to condemn a whole ocean.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others are the exception, not the rule.

Would the majority of people support giving KSM Geneva protections? No, I suppose they would not. But the President's legislation is not about KSM and the others. It is a broad and permanent policy pronouncement, which we will have to live with for years. It is about how we treat our prisoners in general and how we carry ourselves as a nation.

The vast majority of those who have passed through Bush's prisons, or just received some quick torture, were minor players at best... assuming they were even terrorists at all.

When people have looked into the individual cases, they have found that most of those swept in Bush's wide net were only guilty of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Andrew Sullivan did a great writeup on this last week. He wrote, "Dozens of Gitmo detainees have been released with no charges brought against them, just as the U.S. concedes that up to 90 percent of those jailed at Abu Ghraib were innocent. Read this op-ed about just one man detained for four years at Gitmo, even though the administration conceded he was innocent. Earlier this year, to cite another investigation, the National Journal examined court documents relating to 132 'enemy combatants' at Gitmo, or about a quarter of the detainees there... [and finds that the] government's documents tie only eight of the 132 men directly to plans for terrorist attacks".

In his war, the President has decided what the rules are: If he decides that you are a terrorist, you are. If he decides that you should be tortured, you will be. If he decides not to call it 'torture' so he can save his own ass politically, it will not be 'torture'. If he decides that your insane ramblings you spout to stop the torture is the truth, then it is true. If he decides to use that 'truth' as the justification for further actions (preemptive wars or security crackdowns at home), then it is proper justification. If he decides to put you on trial without evidence or due process, then you are and always were guilty. Any questions?

Did these people deserve to be robbed of their Geneva protections, their dignity and humanity, and- in some cases- their lives? Is that the argument that the President wants to make to the American people? I doubt it.

So, no the President will not, and should not, win this fight.

Furthermore, at today's press conference, NBC's David Gregory made an excellent point- If the United States decides that the Geneva Conventions (which have been international law for half a century) do not apply to them, then do they still apply to any other nation? How would the President react, Gregory asked, if a foreign government captured a U.S. soldier/officer, subjected him to torture, then tried and convicted him with evidence he wasn't allowed to see? The President dismissed the question as a hypothetical and angrily refused to answer when prodded further.

And Josh Marshall rolls his eyes at the President's argument that "time is running out" for Congress to pass this legislation and that "the program" (gee, that doesn't sound too Orwellian) cannot proceed if Congress will not provide the U.S. intelligence community with the legal "clarity" they need to proceed. Ignoring that legal clarity already exists in the form of the Geneva rules, Marshall correctly disputes the supposed urgency of this. He says "Time is running out to set up military tribunals to try suspected terrorists who we've had in custody for two, three, four, in some cases I think even close to five years with no particular need or urgency to try them at all. But... when Congress comes back in December it'll be too late[?]" I would add, though, that one reason for the rush may be concerns over war crime prosecution.

I hope that the Democrats will continue to stand up to the President on this vital issue and not listen to what the opposition wants them to believe. It is people like Blankely who insisted it was politically expedient in 2002 for Democrats to support the Iraq war resolution. And I hope that that Republicans- Powell and the others- who have stood up to the President will also not back down. He will use the elections and the specter of terrorism to try and force his radical agenda, but he must not succeed.

"The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism"-- Colin Powell.

[Related topic: The President also got called out at the press conference on his warrantless wiretapping program. The President did not give a substantive reply, simply insisting it be called the 'terrorist surveillance program' and then laughing about those semantics. Tim Greave at Salon has the money quote on this false debate: "When anyone suggests that the administration actually follow the law and get a warrant when it engages in wiretapping, Bush and his surrogates immediately claim the critics want to prevent the United States from listening to al-Qaida altogether. We know that's not true, they know that's not true, but they're hoping that there are just enough people out there who don't know any better to keep the Republicans in control of the House and Senate come November."

Atrios also points out some key logic holes in the White House's wiretapping argument.]