20 of 21

by Terry Booth

• Writing:

• A
• A
• A

There are those who invite us to believe that we are "criminally" holding people at Guantanamo, and that the Bush administration is responsible for trammeling the "rights" of these people in contravention of the US constitution. How ridiculous these assertions are.

Contrary to some opinions I have read, the internees in GITMO are not innocent Japanese men, women and children - American citizens interned in the desert during WWII. They were not ordered out of their homes and made to pack one suitcase to be driven to camps for the duration of the war. Rather, these men are hard-core, indoctrinated military men and terrorists who are trained to kill Americans, who were captured on the battlefield. Never, in the history of warfare have military combatants been accorded civilian trials unless they were charged with war crimes, and even these were tried in military courts only after the war ended.

Critics decry the unfairness of our holding enemy combatants without trial for an indeterminate amount of time. They would accord our enemies, the people who seek to destroy our way of life and kill us, the rights of individual American CITIZENS. In fact, they are more than prisoners of war because they are not merely innocent drafted men caught up in a conflict, but rather they are radical fanatics whose idealism and indoctrination is on-going. If released back into the populace they will return to fight and kill again. There are already incidents of this happening when we have released some of the "more innocuous" internees in Guantanamo. In what war has any country ever released captured soldiers to fight again?

Just because these terroristic combatants do not all fight for recognized corporeal governments does not mean they do not have the support and acquiescence of governments and terrorist organizations i.e., Iran, Syria, countless other terrorist Islamic movements and the displaced Taliban. They believe they are in a fight with Satan for God and the Caliphate, or the universal and higher government that they seek to impose.

Theirs is a belief in a pan Islamic movement; a heavenly and higher government than any existing on Earth. They and all "Islamic" governments owe first allegiance to Islam, and seek a return of the Caliphate and submission of all people, eventually, to this government of God. They believe they are first warriors of "God", and anything they do, any depravity they commit, is sanctioned by God himself in the form of "fatwas" issued by Islamic clerics.

To say we should treat these people as individual criminals that are innocent until proved guilty is the height of sophistry. Can you imagine the phalanx of lawyers tying up our court system if we are forced to accede to the likes of fatuous liberals and publicity seeking ACLU lawyers? What a circus that would be! No, these "combatants", for lack of a better word, are a combination of the worst sort of foe we have ever fought. If anything, they are more dedicated, more indoctrinated, and more convinced of the righteousness of their goals than any group we have ever fought before. Arguments to the contrary that would end our ability to contain them, question them and keep them off the fields of battle are dangerous and facile.

Remember, they are not common criminals. With the exception of one American who has been tried in court and sentenced to fifteen years in prison (forty years ago he would have been shot for treason), they are not American citizens. They have no protection under the Constitution, and while we give them humane treatment which exceeds that required by the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war, we are obligated, by self-preservation if nothing else, to delay their repatriation to their home countries and any "trials" until this war is concluded.

Learn more about this author, Terry Booth.

Add your voice
Know something about Assessing the rights of Guantanamo Bay detainees? We want to hear your view. Write now!