Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
The absurdities of trying to fight an unconventional war against a irregular foe are once again on graphic display, as a military judge in Guantanamo today threw out the charges against a Canadian citizen seized in Afghanistan after he had killed a US soldier with a grenade:
A military judge dismissed terrorism-related charges Monday against a prisoner charged with killing an American soldier in Afghanistan, delivering a blow to the Bush administration’s attempt to try Guantanamo detainees in military courts.
The ruling raised questions about whether the U.S. would have to further revise procedures for prosecuting prisoners, leading to major delays.
The chief of military defense attorneys at Guantanamo Bay, Marine Col. Dwight Sullivan, argued that the ruling could spell the end of the war-crimes trial system set up last year by Congress and President Bush after the Supreme Court threw out the previous system.
The judge – a military judge – determined that since the defendant in this case had originally been classified as an “enemy combatant” vice an “illegal enemy combatant,” the trial system hammered out between the executive branch and Congress didn’t apply to him.
He’s probably right and it makes a perfect kind of kafkaesque sense – although Camus’ “The Stranger” may serve as a better metaphor – with America herself on trial for an implicit deficiency in character. How else can we describe a sytem wherein it is permissible to kill enemy combatants on the battlefield, but where – once surrendered – we are unable to either detain them for the duration of hostilities or try them for war crimes?
We are roundly criticized for holding enemy combatants “indefinitely” – with the charmingly naive assumption that we ourselves somehow control the endurance of their enmity. I guess we are supposed to offer foreign terrorists detained overseas the same constitutional privileges and access to our courts system that they themselves are fighting to destroy.
That may sound like a kind of justice to certain people, but it’s certainly a novel concept in the history of armed conflict.
Update: This hardly needs being appended here, but I’ll do so anyway -
An Iraqi insurgent group says it has killed two missing American soldiers who they said had been captured alive.
According to a full translation of a ten-minute video released by the group earlier today, the group claims the soldiers would have survived had the U.S. Army not done the search in such a way that included random arrests and humiliation of Muslims.
Sartre would have had a field day.
Oh MAN this makes me want to use language that – yes – would make several sailors in these parts blush. The best I can do without alienating everyone is – boo-f….-hoo.
Humiliation of Muslims – Jeez Louise I just don’t understand them. I really don’t. As has been said here before – bring it. now. hard.
(Sorry for the lack of anything even close to erudition; I’m mentally sputtering I’m so mad.)
I pray for their souls (the servicemen, that is). Having watched loved ones die it is my opinion that the inevitable dying is not the worst. No, the suffering (and in this case torture) on the way to death is the worst.
It is a truly sick human being who can blame the murder of another human being, by their hand, on the behavior of another party.
I just hope our own service personnel are not carried away in the political winds for these supposed war crimes.
Pray for the families.
Lex,
Could you again provide the set of links to organizations dedicated to helping families of fallen soldiers? Seems apropos.
It is they, the heartless, gutless terrorist SOBs, who have humiliated Islam…
God Bless the soldiers…and track the bastards down.
Who knows if they were taken alive, had their bodies dragged away as trophys, or are still alive today. Truth is that the trigger-pullers know that surrender isn’t an option, for something worse than a death in battle awaits.
As for the military judge, and the rectitude of his ruling. This is what comes of putting too fine a point on things. We’re not holding anyone at Gitmo who deserves anything more than a dirtnap, after being exhausted as an intel source. These decisions are best left in the hands of combat arms officers, not JAGOFFS.
Yeah, I do find it interesting that they showed the soldiers’ IDs, not their bodies or video of them alive. I suppose if that is significant, it means either they died before they could be taken to a place where their deaths could be videotaped, or else they are still alive (and being tortured).
You know it’s bad when you find yourself hoping for the former…
This is one Canadian who firmly believes that Omar Khadr should most definitely be tried as an “enemy combatant”, and is ashamed that his case is dragging on so long. His actions killed a Soldier, and I don’t understand what else there is to understand.
Ever since the Soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division were reported as missing, I have prayed that they would be found alive and now…I pray that they will be found.
I am able to pass on that The Blue Star Moms of America are one support organization that would be of immediate help to families (phone: 1-763-0691). They are a support organization which has been in existence since World War Two, are self-supporting, and non-political. Should i think of anything else, I will share.
Veritas et Fidelis Semper
I think you need to go back and re-read The Stranger. Camus recognized the absurdity of it all, in the same way he criticized the court that sentenced the protaganist in the novel to be decapitated “for the glory of France”.
The judge probably made a correct decision from a legal standpoint. And now it will be he who pays the price for doing his duty as a judge. He’ll not be presiding over another trial down there, but quietly transferred as he did not produce the desired result.
Skippy, I think it was the Washington Post that had that same conclusion about the legal interpretation.
I think you need to go back and read Camus – the absurdity of the system under trial here is one that ensures we can’t win, we can’t break even and we have to play the game. All for the glory of appearing more noble – how much more noble? – than these our despicable foes.
There. Now I feel all smug and self-satisfied too.
Eh, much ado about nothing. Legal mechanations designed to allow the prosecutors to refile after doing some kabuki, and making the semantical change.
Transferred? No, I believe he’s slated for a swimming accident. The doc can give you something for that paranoia skippy. My guess is that the prosecution waded in to their knees, then decided that they hadn’t crossed that “t”. Better to deal with it now, than to have to dance on the SCOTUS rug.
One solution and one solution only… Capture those who are of value as an intel source and kill the rest. Screw this enemy POW stuff.
Jim C