The Illogic of Destroying An Idea In Order to Preserve It

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands: One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

That's a phrase I recited a lot in my early elementary education years, back when school children started their day with it (they still should, in my opinion). I probably would have disagreed with President Eisenhower's addition of "One nation under God" in 1954 but I can appreciate that it's intended to reference this country's inherent moral compass. It's a simple and profound statement. During the cold war, it was to be a reminder of what separated us from our enemy.

After viewing this Gitmo video over at Andrew Sullivan's blog, I think we need another reminder.

I'm all for executing justice; for locking up the bad guys and tossing away the key. I sure don't feel any imperative to 'rehabilitate' those who would like to kill us. But surely what is happening at Guantanamo Bay is indefensible. I have no idea who's guilty at Gitmo and who's not but that's exactly the problem... nobody seems inclined to find out. It's easy to call gitmo a necessary evil, or to dismiss the non-American prisoners who are stashed there in our care as collateral damage in the war on terror, but that is the antithesis of what we've declared ourselves to stand for. Actually, it's the antithesis of what we're fighting so hard to defend.

I think Barack Obama probably said it best from the Senate floor in his defense of habeas corpus. From the transcript:

Now, the vast majority of the folks in Guantanamo, I suspect, are there for a reason. There are a lot of dangerous people. Particularly dangerous are people like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Ironically, those are the guys who are going to get real military procedures because they are going to be charged by the Government. But detainees who have not committed war crimes--or where the Government's case is not strong--may not have any recourse whatsoever.

The bottom line is this: Current procedures under the CSRT are such that a perfectly innocent individual could be held and could not rebut the Government's case and has no way of proving his innocence.

I would like somebody in this Chamber, somebody in this Government, to tell me why this is necessary. I do not want to hear that this is a new world and we face a new kind of enemy. I know that. I know that every time I think about my two little girls and worry for their safety--when I wonder if I really can tuck them in at night and know that they are safe from harm. I have as big of a stake as anybody on the other side of the aisle and anybody in this administration in capturing terrorists and incapacitating them. I would gladly take up arms myself against any terrorist threat to make sure my family is protected.

But as a parent, I can also imagine the terror I would feel if one of my family members were rounded up in the middle of the night and sent to Guantanamo without even getting one chance to ask why they were being held and being able to prove their innocence.

This is not just an entirely fictional scenario, by the way. We have already had reports by the CIA and various generals over the last few years saying that many of the detainees at Guantanamo should not have been there. As one U.S. commander of Guantanamo told the Wall Street Journal:

Sometimes, we just didn't get the right folks.

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