"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."-H. L. Mencken
One of President Obama's first acts in office was to sign an Executive order to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. Two days later the New York Times publishes an article about a former Gitmo detainee, Said Ali al-Shihri who reportedly rejoined Al-Qaeda and has become a "deputy leader" for "Al-Qaeda's Yemeni branch." (I use quotes in this instance because the article in no way provides any context--what constitutes the Yemeni branch? It could be a three-man terror cell for all we know. And considering that we seem to kill the "number two" Al-Qaeda operative every six months, what does it even mean to be the deputy leader?) Interesting timing, no? In the article, al-Shihri is linked to the bombing of a U.S. embassy in Yemen that occurred last September (he'd been released into Saudi custody a year prior). The Pentagon claims there are a large number of former detainees who have returned to the battlefield. Corroborating evidence of this ranges from thin to non-existent. Similar AP articles have circulated on most major news sites such as the Yahoo front page, MSNBC and CNN. The Times followed up Sunday with a roundtable of sorts talking about how this article highlights the "challenges" Obama faces in closing Gitmo. To paraphrase Donald Sutherland's character in JFK: "Who benefits?" I'm not suggesting there is a conspiracy of any kind here; what I think is obvious is that there is a concerted effort to undermine Mr. Obama's unassailable decision to close Guantanamo. It is also obvious that as it was with the Iraq War, the MSM is an all too willing accomplice in this endeavor.
There is no debate here. Guantanamo is a blight on America's international reputation; what has gone on there is demonstrably illegal and the Bush apologists' claims of how useful the facility has been have been thoroughly debunked. If the case of al-Shihri shows us anything, it is how counter-productive the policies and methods of the previous regime have proven. What outcome do we expect from imprisoning and in some cases torturing individuals for years on end without allowing even the hint of due process? We should be no more surprised at this than we are about the recidivism rate in our domestic prison system.
This is just the latest propaganda salvo from the remaining neoconservative stalwarts and hard-right Republicans in their attempts to justify and prolong the Bush policies of the years since 9/11. These are the same individuals who have demonized whistleblowers like Russell Tice for exposing the criminality of the former administration. Tice was the source for the New York Times article that detailed the illegal wiretapping program the Bush administration implemented (the same one Democratic senators Feinstein and Rockefeller gave their blessing to). He was on Countdown where he detailed more NSA abuses via illegal wiretaps. Recall this is the same illegal wiretapping activity our Congress granted the nation's largest telecommunication companies such as AT&T and Verizon immunity for this past summer (the same companies that claimed to be doing their "patriotic duty"; the same companies that lavished millions on the DNC back in August less than three months after the FISA Amendment was passed). Yet all this has been framed in the MSM as a debate about policy; the "we shouldn't criminalize policy differences"-line has become the Beltway mantra (President Obama has unfortunately if understandably echoed the same sentiment with his "we want to look forward"-stance). In the words of Bill Clinton: "This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen." We refuse to prosecute these injustices and thus allow those who would further perpetuate them to legitimize their position. Then these feckless demagogues use fear to galvanize the public against what is clearly just and moral.
The other insidious narrative they've tried to insert into the debate is that it will be somehow unsafe to warehouse the Gitmo detainees on American soil. Of course this is utter bull. This nation incarcerates more of its citizens than any other on the planet, so I think we're pretty good at it. Yet, straight-faced some Republican Congressional members assert Americans will somehow be endangered and subjected to higher risks of terrorist attacks should we house them stateside. Why do we keep treating these prisoners as if they're supervillains? As bad as 9/11 was, we've lost five times as many people per year to conventional domestic homicide. The ADX Florence supermax facility in Colorado currently holds the following notable convicts: Omar Abdel-Rahman, Zacarias Moussaoui, Jose Padilla, Ramzi Yousef and homegrown domestic terrorist Terry Nichols. Some of these men have been in U.S. custody for over a decade. Last time I checked we haven't had to repel any brazen rescue attempts from Osama bin Laden and his flying air fortress. I guess we should expect this level of argument from a side that thinks "24" is admissible evidence in an intellectually honest debate.
Thomas Jefferson once said: "Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom." It saddens and angers me that it is our own government employing the scare tactics and fear-mongering designed to deprive of us of that freedom which we must guard against.
