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Add to FavoritesChances are, the United States and her allies will never win another war outright. There are powers that be who do not want her to, apparently.
War is not, nor has it ever been a pretty thing. It involves espionage, killing, taking prisoners of war, and political intrigue. Every one of these components is necessary to winning. Most of these are thwarted by a greedy media and warped thinking politicians.
Througho ut history, warriors have been heroes. There are persons and groups in America who do not see their military as heroic. They tie the hands of the leaders at every opportunity and cause the soldiers to come home feeling a burden of guilt.
Even in the Old Testament we read about graphic brutality. The Israelites were often instructed to destroy every living being among the enemy. This sounds heinous, but God knows human nature. He knows that we often adopt the worst of other cultures rather than the best. He did not want the Israelites inter-marrying with their foes, or bringing back "loot" which often consisted of household idols. He was striving to keep the culture of the Israelites pure and free of interlopers who wanted to introduce new ideas and new gods to them.
We are no different than the people of old. We, too, often absorb the worst of other cultures, but worse than that, in time of war, we sympathize and empathize with the enemy. We want every bit of espionage published. We do not want the prisoners of war punished or questioned. We do not want our soldiers to be the agressor - always the defender. This will never win a war.
The outcome of the recent trial of Bin Laden's driver as an accessory to terrorist acts could not possibly have encouraged our soldiers. The sentence was light enough to have been no sentence at all. The judge even smiled and told him how eager he is to have him rejoin his wife and children. How many American soldiers have been killed as a result of his actions and choices? They will never rejoin their families. The publicity of this so called trial must have been very demoralizing to our fighting men and women.
I personally think that the trial after World War II at Nuremburg handled it right. They tried all the war criminals in one place after the war was over. All were publicly hanged, with the exception of Herman Goerring, who managed to commit suicide. There is no way to have a war crimes trial without it generating a mountain of publicity. This is unhealthy for the war effort.
American soldiers are doing time for "humiliating" prisoners. Though I don't agree with some of the events at Guantanamo Bay, I do understand why they happened. Most of the guards had seen or known of brothers in arms being killed by the very people with whom these prisoners align themselves. They had seen news reports of Americans being kidnapped and/or beheaded by blindfolded people of the ilk of those held at Guantanamo Bay. They would not be human if they did not feel some bitterness.
We in this country bend over backward to be humane. At least once a week I get an e-mail of an American soldier(s) playing with local children, delivering blankets or other supplies to locals and helping in any way they can to make things better for people. In return, they get blown up by a roadside bomb that no one warned them about. In the "new war" our soldiers cannot even tell who the enemy actually is, and yet we ask them to treat those arrested for terrorism hospitibly. That is asking a lot. They go the second mile to find and arrest these known terrorists only to see on the news that a tribunal felt that their crimes were "not so bad". They must surely ask, "why bother?".
This attitude of ours will soon destroy us from the inside. There won't even need to be a war, which is alright, because there won't be a military to fight it.
Learn more about this author, Linda Burleson.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
Yes
"Even one day is too much time
To be hung without a charge, to be condemned without a crime
Cruel irony, in the land of liberty.
And when it come to human rights
Why is it always in some foreign land we choose to stand and fight
When will they realise, its right before our eyes.
Ah but justice is a fickle thing
One law for the common man, another for the king
And don't you know when kings can't win the game
It wont be long before the rules are changed
And its all justified when you're on the winning side."
This song came from Ireland and I am sorry I do not have the name of the writer to accompany these bitter and poignant lyrics. They could equally well apply to Guantanamo Bay and all the corruption, twisting of words and invention of new laws and use of legal loopholes which have been the hallmark of the US authorities in their dealings with detainees in this notorious prison.
In the good old days of proper wars, there was a well defined enemy, well defined POW camps and a well defined Geneva Convention to protect the rights of prisoners held until the end of the war when victory was declared.
The "war against terror " is not a proper war. The war in Iraq is not a proper war. It started, at best, as a misguided act of revenge against a regime which was supposed to be behind the dreadful happenings of 9/11. The detainees held at Guantanamo are nor proper prisoners of war. They are
suspected unlawful "enemy combatants". The prison is not a proper POW camp. It is an "intelligence gathering center" and thus exempt from any controls in place to protect inmates. There is no "victory"
to be had and no apparent end to the conflict in either Iraq or Afghanistan.
In short, there are no rules except those which have been invented to suit the situation and defend the position of the USA.
Many of the detainees at Guantanamo have been arrested without charge. Some have been handed over by Pakistani bounty hunters. There are boys from as young as ten years old and old men , taxi drivers and
farm workers held for an indefinite period without trial and with no rights. Suspects, possible terrorists, potential informers are all captive and wasting their lives away in this place that is shrouded for the main part in secrecy and about which most reports are negative.
There is no solitary confinement, simply "single cell accommodation." Inmates can communicate through the walls. The lights are reported to be on 24 hours so there is no comfort of darkness. Exercise sessions are minimal. There is no access to sunlight and fresh air. No visits from family. No television, no radio and one telephone call or a year. Some detainees have committed suicide and others are going insane, too insane to prepare their defense and fight their corner.
These people must be give a fair trial, in full knowledge of their rights, with proper legal representation, without delay or excuses. There is nothing to debate. Should we wait until the war is over? If that means it is OK to hold possibly innocent individuals in cruel and inhumane conditions for as many years it takes to eradicate the dark side of human nature then by all means but the wait will be long. Make no mistake, there have always been "terrorists". If the idea of
"innocent until proven guilty" means any thing, certainly not.
Amnesty International was rightly born from democracy and its freedoms, spawned from the lands of liberty. They have fought for the rights of political prisoners the world over because of the conviction that in the democratic free world no-one should be imprisoned because of their beliefs, religion or political views and that everyone, even those arrested for a specific crime with evidence to support the arrest, is entitled to a trial and to defense in court. They continue to fight for the suspected terrorist activists, not because they condone violence and the killing of innocents but because they believe in justice and equal rights amongst men and women the world over.
The activities at Guantanamo Bay make a mockery of all that democratic world stands for. It shows the
dark side of the "free world" to be as dark as that of the "enemy". In a country that purports to embrace a Christian morality the words "love your neighbor as you would love yourself" seem to have been conveniently forgotten. Were US citizens to be treated in this way the outcry would be loud and forceful.
Those wasted and tortured lives in Guantanamo are the war crime. The trial should start now.
Learn more about this author, margaret hillcroft.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
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