Human wrongs: Violations abound at Guantanamo Bay (Spewing BARF Alert)

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Since the United States leased land in Guantanamo Bay from Cuba in 1903, the government has used this site for incarcerating prisoners of war. Guantanamo Bay, officially still Cuban, is not subject to U.S. law, rendering activities there largely free from public scrutiny.

Today it is the temporary home of 140 imprisoned Taliban and al-Qaeda combatants captured in Afghanistan. Despite the crimes of which these prisoners are accused, the United States has a responsibility under international law to respect certain standards of imprisonment. The International Committee of the Red Cross and other human rights organizations currently are investigating allegations of multiple abuses of international law and human rights at America's makeshift facility in Cuba.

Inmates reside in six-by-eight-foot cells with concrete floors, metal roofs and chain-link fences for walls that provide no protection from wind and rain. Photographs of those in custody taken during transportation to Cuba also revealed prisoners in leg shackles, hoods, masks and blindfolds. An apparatus for human waste disposal was attached to each prisoner's chair because prisoners had so little freedom of motion. Allegations regarding the use of sedatives for nonmedical purposes during these flights also have surfaced.

It has become clear the international community will not ignore these offences. British officials now are demanding to know why the "detainees" have been seen handcuffed and forcibly bent over on the ground.

All of these practices violate international law. Under the Geneva Convention and the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, prisoners have the right to hard-walled shelters, protection from torture and fair judicial treatment. These are basic human rights the U.S. government must not ignore.

Attempting to avoid the consequences of breaking the Geneva Accords, President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have been referring to their captives as "unlawful combatants" who are "not nice people."

While it may be true that many of these prisoners may not be guaranteed the rights granted to prisoners of war, the United States is not in a position to make those judgments. The Geneva Convention specifies a captured combatant must be treated as a prisoner of war unless an international tribunal rules differently. Bush and Rumsfeld's uninformed remarks towards these serious allegations show this administration's tendency to use the word "war" selectively, without considering its legal implications.

Bush's actions concerning the 140 new inmates in Guantanamo Bay suggest he is aware of these violations of international law and intends to continue in his present manner despite them. In order to investigate the human rights abuses, the ICRC had to agree to share its findings with only the U.S. government in the form of suggestions for improvement. If the Bush administration is confident prisoners are being treated fairly, it should not be reticent to allow human rights organizations both access to the camp for inspection and sanction to release their findings to the public.

Simply holding the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, with its unique legal status as leased property from Cuba, instead of in a more suitable location within the United States or nearer to Afghanistan implies an intention to escape the watchful eye of the press. As the world's lone superpower, the United States has a responsibility to uphold international law to its highest standard; the Bush administration should afford the prisoners at Guantanamo the same basic rights it would if it thought the public was watching.

A man from Nebraska, a man from Michigan and a man from Michigan State are all walking along a beach together when the man from Nebraska spots an old lantern barely visible in the sand. He pulls it out and begins to polish it with his hand when a genie pops out and hovers above them. "You have called me and now I must grant each of you one wish," the genie said. "Tell me what you desire and I will make it come true."

The guy from Nebraska wasted no time. "I'm a farmer," he began, "like my father, my grandfather, and his father before him. My wish is for the land to always be fertile in Nebraska."

The genie crossed his arms, nodded his head and a puff of smoke came from the lantern. "It is done," the genie said."I have made the land forever fertile for farming in Nebraska."

The Michigan man was impressed by what he saw. "Wow!" he said. "That's great! You know what I have always wanted? I would like a huge wall to be built all the way around the city of Ann Arbor so nobody can any longer get in or out of our beautiful city."

The genie folded his arms, nodded, and once again a puff of smoke came from the lantern. "It is done," he announced. "A giant concrete wall, 150 feet high and 50 feet thick has been placed around the City of Ann Arbor."

Hearing this, the man from Michigan State just smiled and said quietly, "Perfect....now fill it with water."

There are no locations more suitable or convenient, short of an isolated Pacific island.The Pacific would be a big inconvenience. If our greatest concern was 'avoiding the watchful eye of the press,' rather than adhering to the Geneva Convention requirement the author conveniently ignores- that of not parading prisoners before journalists and the public, and preventing them from being exposed to public ridicule. The other Geneva convention requirement is to get prisoners as far away from the battle zone as possible- for their own safety and for the security of the captors. the author ignores this as well. The third reason to take them to Cuba is that no nation is obligated by ANY law or treaty to take prisoners into their territory for 'storage' or for prosecution. Our reluctance to bring hundreds of prisoners here is for OUR safety- and I have no argument with that.

And if we really wanted to 'avoid the press' to hide our treatment of the prisoners, we sure as heck wouldn't have published general pictures of the facilities or captives from a distance. In fact, if we wanted to avoid press problems completely, we would simply never acknowledge receipt of the prisoners and would instead keep them in Afghanistan only long enough to glean them for information and to dig their graves for final disposal. Or drop them encased in concrete in the deepest ocean trench we can find.

As the world's lone superpower, the United States has a responsibility to uphold international law to its highest standard;

Um, no, in fact we do not have ANY such responsibility. The US is a world power for one reason: it is the absolute best way to ensure that Americans are well defended. As such, the highest obligation of the US is to defend our own interests and our own people, according to OUR law, which is the highest law. Why is our law the highest law? Well, the United States is the only nation which acknowledges that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights (trial in the US is not one of those inalienable rights, BTW). Since no other nation, nor international agreements, share this view, and instead they believe that people's liberty comes from government- no other human authority, however international in scope, is supreme to our own law. Period.

That in the process of tending to our own interests we tend to defend a whole lot of other people's interests is purely coincidental, and rather nice for international public relations, but certainly not an obligation on our part. Now, if someone else wants to be a world power so they can have the absolute best defense for their people, they're going to have to work for that status just as our nation did. And if they want to uphold and enforce 'international law' they will have to become a greater superpower than we, or else they will only be able to uphold international law so long as it does not conflict with US interests. That's life.

the Bush administration should afford the prisoners at Guantanamo the same basic rights it would if it thought the public was watching.

It is assuming the public is watching, and they are getting all the rights they are entitled to by international and US law. The simple fact is, there isn't a whole lot of law out there to protect people who do not fit the definitions of lawful combatants, and treating unlawful combatants as POWs demeans true POWs and renders the Geneva Convention moot. In addition, it would lend legitimacy to and encourage terrorist tactics over tactics of war- and that would be an aggregious error.

US law places non-US prisoners captured on the battlefield outside of this country, firmly in the hands of the US military- in other words, in the hands of the executive branch of government. This is the enforcing branch, not the judicial branch. They are not nor should they be in the hands of the civil judicial system since our civil system does not have jurisdiction outside our borders any more than any other country's civil systems extend into international territory.

To benefit from US civil courts, you must be in the US or be extradited to the US under conditions that require civil court procedings. Not all extraditions do- sometimes nations just want to be rid of the people as much as we want to get ahold of them. Where no such extradition conditions exist, a prisoner's status is up in the air. The reason we treat people INSIDE the US - even foreign nationals that have resided in the US legally - under the civil system, is not because we are concerned about a terrorist's rights, but because we need to preserve American citizens' rights. We would not want to confuse, intentionally or unintentially, US citizens for foreign nationals and end up denying a citizen his or her rights.

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I do disagree with the new idea coming out that citizenship is 'meaningless.' I do not agree that noncitizens should have just as many rights under our system as citizens. I believe that we should treat visitors and immigrants as citizens- only if legal- to the civil rights normally accorded to citizens... but only as a very important courtesy which we can publicly deny in times of war or emergency to prospective visitors, permitting them to decide for themselves if they wish to risk it and enter the country. Those not wanting to remain in the US in such times may leave immediately, if they wish to remain, they may seek special recognition of their status which entitles them to full civil rights protection.

Illegals, however, should never be equated with citizens, legal immigrants, or lawful visitors. Distinctions are important to protect the civil rights of US citizens, legal immigrants, and legal visitors- blurring the concept of citizenship rights and obligations endangers our liberty just as surely as any draconian security laws.

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