Some Good News on Gitmo

It's not much, but at least some politicians are fighting back. Via Unconsidered Trifles is this really good statement on Gitmo by Senator John Kyl (R-AZ). The best parts pertain to the legal status of the inmates, both in terms of our own laws and in terms of the Geneva Convention.

The detainees at Guantanamo are not in a legal limbo any more than any other prisoners in any other war were in limbo when they were captured. International law allows any nation the right to detain enemy combatants for the duration of a conflict. The primary reason is to prevent them from killing more Americans, and, secondarily, to gather useful intelligence. That's why we are holding these men - they are enemy combatants who were shooting at our troops or otherwise involved in terrorism, and many have information that could help prevent further attacks. We certainly never "tried" captured Nazis or Japanese POWs in World War II (with the exception of a few leaders charged with war crimes) although many were held for years.

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Because they indiscriminately target civilians and are not fighting for another particular country, among other reasons, these individuals do not qualify for the protections of the Geneva Conventions [emphasis added]. Nonetheless, official U.S. policy is to apply Geneva standards, including access to lawyers, Red Cross visits, and so forth. Every single detainee receives a new review every year to determine whether he still poses a risk. That would seem to be a reasonable standard for a country at war, and surely a credible "plan" for "handling" their cases.

The commentariat is also making a few good points including, I am happy to say, some that I made long ago. Mark Steyn (via TIA Daily) makes lots of good points, especially on what the delerious left regards as "torture."

Spot the odd one out: (1) mass starvation, (2) gas chambers, (3) mountains of skulls, (4) lousy infidel pop music at full volume. One of these is not the same as the others, and Mr. Durbin doesn't have the excuse of being some airhead celeb or an Ivy League professor. He's the Senate Judiciary Committee's second-ranking Democrat. Don't they have an insanity clause?

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So, until Guantanamo, America was "viewed as a leader in human rights"? Not in 2004, when Abu Ghraib was the atrocity du jour. Not in 2003, when every humanitarian organization on the planet predicted the deaths of millions of Iraqis from cholera, dysentery and other diseases due to America's "war for oil." Not in 2002, when the "human rights" lobby filled the streets of Vancouver and London and Rome and Sydney to protest the Bushitler plans to end the benign reign of good King Saddam. Not the weekend before September 11, 2001, when the human-rights grandees of the U.N. "anti-racism" conference met in South Africa to demand America pay reparations for the Rwandan genocide and to cheer Robert Mugabe to the rooftops for calling on Britain and America to "apologize unreservedly for their crimes against humanity."

If you close Gitmo tomorrow, the world's anti-Americans will look around and within 48 hours light on something else for Gulag of the Week.

If that last sentence sounds familiar, you might have read it here first.

Unless Bush dramatically changes course from evasion and appeasement to standing his ground, I predict that Gitmo will close by year's end or that there will be a firm plan in place to do so. If and when that occurs, the left will find something else to attack Bush for [italics mine]. That's what you get when you try to satisfy someone who has already decided that no matter what you do, you are not good enough. The correct answer, George, is to ignore such people after first explaining to those who are open to reason what you stand for and why you are ignoring the ridiculous accusations of the media moonbats.

Steyn puts it better and has a much bigger audience, so.... Good for him! And thanks!

I would like to add one thing. The left, be it in its current Gitmo hysteria, its presumption that anthropogenic global warming is widely regarded as scientific fact, or its refusal to acknowledge capitalism as the most effective means of bringing prosperity to the greatest number of people (This is not why we should have it, but it is a happy result.) always acts the same. Their point of view is repeated endlessly and hysterically until either someone stands up to them with facts on his side or they get their way. In the first case, the leftists inevitably get discredited in the minds of those who are open to reason. In the latter, we all suffer from the consequences of their refusal to test their beliefs against reality once their beliefs get put into practice (i.e., their beliefs finally do get tested against reality -- on our own hides).

In this way -- aside from consistently advocating policies that would obviously aid the terrorists -- the left resembles the terrorists in that how they act is completely unaffected by what we do as Americans. Before, during, and after September 11, 2001, the Islamofascists hated us and were working to kill us. Before, during, and after the war in Iraq, they hated us and were working to kill us. Before, during, and after the closure of Gitmo (if that happens), they hated us and were working to kill us. With all of these examples, replace "Islamofascists" with "the Anti-American left" and "kill us" with "appease the terrorists" and you'll get the picture.

Forget changing them. The thing to do is to stand up to them, and to make them unable to satisfy their uncivilized urges. If we close Gitmo, the left, as Steyn points out, will find the next thing it can do to aid the terrorists. And if we close Gitmo, more terrorists will be out there and able to act upon their urges. The minds of both "blame America first" leftists and the Islamofascists have already been made up. This is why appeasement is worthless with them and the only appropriate action is to stand up to both.

-- CAV