You were doing OK, right up until the end there.

I'm trying to see the connection between closing Gitmo and invigorating anything. Except perhaps al-Qaeda, who would (rightly) see it as another Madrid-style political victory and loss of nerve by their enemies.

The price would not be a small one.

Where we house these idiots is immaterial, at least to me, but the debate over it is taking all the oxygen out of far more important matters (two words: "Qu'ran Abuse," which we've been talking about for how many weeks now) whether it's the current situation in Iraq or the implications of Rafsanjani's return after he wins his pretend election.

Maybe I'm wrong to focus on just the abuse/detainee issue, but it's clear (at least to me) that something has sucked a lot of energy out of the administration of late. Or at least that's just my impression here in DC.

Unless the prisoners are released, then closing gitmon will chnage nothing. The controversy will just follow them to the next facility.

As far as the administration being lackluster... this is typical Bush strategy. The media is taking up all the rope that Bush is giving them. It remains to be seen who'll ultimately hang with it; but I wouldn't bet against Bush. His record is pretty good so far.

Dan, as soon as we put them somewhere else, the same usual suspects would be making the same charges. This time about the USA's "Gulag Archipelago," no doubt.

The charges will continue as long as any al-Qaeda terrorists are held anywhere, until they are accorded full Prisoner of War status with the right NOT to answer questions. At which point agitation for their release will begin because holding them "indefinitely" i.e. for the duration of the conflict is somehow wrong, though entirely legal and expected for POWs.

Past precedent and real law re: illegal combatants, as oposed to the kind made up on the spot by NGOs and the Left, hasn't meant anything so far. Neither has restrictions on interrogation that are patently ridiculous and endanger national security. Or investigations and prosecution when abuses happen. Or release of those deemed not be a threat, several of whom have gone right back to terrorist activities. As you yourself point out.

None have it has made even the slightest dent. Please explain to me why any of that will change.

Closing Gitmo doesn't change anything. All it does is show that if they try harder next time, they can be even more successful.

Like I said, it's immaterial to me where we house all these people, I just wanted to note that wherever we put them is not worth all the controversy that has been raised over the subject.

We could always put the matter out of our hands altogether and dump them somewhere like Swaqa, but I doubt that'd be the ideal solution ...

Gitmo should not be closed based on hyperventalation of the usual suspects. We have invested the time, energy and $$$, and as others have stated, the "Next Gitmo" will be called just that.

All of this 'prisoner abuse' rhetoric may lead to two practices: more renditions (so we can wash our hands of the interrogation process); the indiscriminate killing of al Qaeda footsoldiers on the battlefields or during arrests (why arrest them when the detentions will only be used against us?). The first is questionable (though I have no moral problems with it), and the second is not, as killing ununiformed terrorists is not illegal.

re: The Bush administration's 'lacklusterness'. I'm with lurker on this. We saw how our position in Iraq changed immediately changed after the Presidential election, and against after the Iraqi election. My guess is after the Iraqis hash out their Constitution, there will be a significant crackdown in Anbar. Iran is a different story, and I am not sure what really can be done there other than operations that cannot be 'advertised' (covert).

Here are my thoughts on the media and some on the left...

By refusing to make any distinctions between legal combatants, illegal combatants, and simple criminals thus insisting on the same treatment for all of them, the media and many on the left are destroying their credibility. Democrats turn around and use all of this as free ammunition against Bush, and then are dismayed that they can't get much political traction.

I think this is because folks just know that there is a difference between terrorists and common criminals. They just know. No amount of posturing can cover up that simple fact, no matter how many times it's on the front page.

You can see it in the recent polls showing the military has higher trust than almost all other American insitutions and is much, much higher than the media's. It's amazing that the same media can report these results on the same page as their stories trashing the military and still not get it.

The real tragedy is that who is going to believe their calls when there really is a wolf at the door?

When the Supreme Court extended judicial oversight to Gitmo, I always thought the days of Gitmo numbered. Keep the detainees in Iraq or Afghanistan, and avoid the litigation. Afghanistan and Iraq are becoming more credible detention locations as well.

What to do, Bill? Do what Sen. Biden advises re: talking to the American people about Iraq would be a fine start (From the Biden/Wheldon interview in Bill's Iraq post today). That would prepare the nation nicely for what's to come on the Iraqi Constitution front, which will feature a lot of wrangling etc. and probably be a near thing with several close calls (so was yours, if the history books are correct).

Taking the offensive on the al-Qaeda prisoner issue and laying out what will happen to them now and why their treatment needs to be different, instead of waiting and being reactive, would have been another good idea.

Putting forth a coherent Iran policy would have been nice, too. Or a Syria policy.

Basically, take the initiative, damn it. It can be done, and doing so is an important part of shifting and framing the public debate.

But you know, I get a daily email from the GOP that goes out to bloggers, and I only started seeing stuff about the war after I reminded them, sharply, that there was a larger world out there and their "inside beltway" fodder wasn't what interested the blogs. Anything war-related is still a low priority, even after all that.

Dan and Fred's "lackluster" point is well taken, I think, and goes beyond President Bush.

At some point the Bush Administration needs to pull the rope in and remind people there is a war on and they have to do it themselves since our press seems not to realize this, the democratic leaders at best pay lip service or ignore it all together.

Most people realize what abuse is and is not and we all know that what has happed in Gitmo and ABU Gharib are not abuse. Hell HS and College hazings can be tougher as has been pointed out.

Until the democrats and the MSM actually pay attention to the world as it is and realize there are a group of Islamic nut jobs who wish us ill, hate all who espouse freedom they will continue to lose all credability they had. I have no hope for the MSM and only slightly more for the Dems.

Joe and Bill:

Nothing, and I mean absolutely is going to convince the usual suspects that the US isn't running a Gulag Archipelago. They already believe that, just like they believe that Gonzalez is Torquemeuda Reborn and that Karl Rove was responsible for that Bill Burkett is a crappy forger. These people aren't the object of whom we're trying to convince, however, but rather otherwise reasonable people who are genuinely disconcerted as to the incidents of prisoner abuse that have occurred under US auspices. Accepting that we are never going to get a perfect system and that there are always going to be incidents of prisoner abuse, I think we need to make certain that our interrogation tactics need to be as effective as possible, which is why I think we need to have interrogators participating in this debate rather than the likes of AI and Co.

I agree with Joe regarding the law concerning detainees and illegal combatants. And I tried to make the point that Bill did with respect to the fact that Gitmo is perfectly good detention facility that we have put a lot of time and taxpayer money into maintaining.

Bill makes a really good point on the impact of our own presidential election concerning events in Iraq, though I would point out that it is precisely because we waited so long to go after Fallujah even after Sadr was clearly defeated in September is one of the reasons why the Bad Guys had so much time to set up and stabilize their terrorist network in the Sunni Triangle that continues to vex us to this day. Thankfully, we appear a lot more willing to launch major operations (al-Qaim) now than we were between September and November 2004.

As far as Iran is considered, our response need not be military.

Lurker:

Interesting you mention that, since that's just the debate they're having over at Liberals Against Terrorism. Once you get past Prak's venom against Cheney, you get the basic gist that they understand that terrorists can't receive the same constitutional protections as the average American but don't trust this administration to come up with a decent balance for the situation. At least one of "the children" being held at Gitmo, for instance, was the son of an al-Qaeda founder and involved in the killing of a US soldier.

Joe:

That's a pretty apt summation of the situation as well as some of own problems with what's going on. A lot of people in the GOP and the Democrats both want to get back to all the petty domestic squabbling that 9/11 so rudely interrupted. Definitely agreed on taking the need to seize the initiative and unfortunately the administration has only themselves to blame in this regard.

dan

excellent post. Im not sure i agree with everything 100% but this raises alot of good issues and lays them out in a way that is conducive to rational discussion. It gets away from some of the hysteria on both sides.

Re: bills point about if you close Gitmo, then the bad publicity will simply shift to Bagram or Diego Garcia, or wherever you put them - im not sure I agree. Gitmo has been heavily publicized since December 2001. Even after having been heavily utilized, only the folks (on both sides) who are really knowledgeable are aware of Diego Garcia, Bagram, etc. The main complaint is that prisoners go into a black hole. Well good. I think the proposal to close Gitmo goes on these lines - you free some of the prisoners - not only the genuinely innocent, but the Taliban foot soldiers, who cant possibly have any more intell to give - if they take up arms agains, thats Kharzais problem. A few dozen, or even a couple of hundred footsoldiers (all fingerprinted, etc) shouldnt be a big threat now. And most would probably go home and keep quiet, as a lot of Taliban in Afghanistan have. The rest, the ones who are higher up, or still are useful for intell, you disperse through the Gul- er, system. Theres not many, theyre not all going to one place, and you dont advertize it so heavily. You make the releases the headline.

Im not saying this is what we should do - im not sure yet - but i dont think Bills issue kills it.

BTW, whats the law, domestic and inter, on "narco-interrogation" (I presume you mean truth serum/giggle juice)

IMO, nothing would justify closing Gitmo except some kind of complete command failure there that made it impossible to control abuse. That doesn't exist, and nothing would be served except to "prove" to the other side that they were right all along.

There are frankly some Democrats in congress who think they can score political points by nailing Gitmo (I'm not questioning Biden in particular, but there are some). It won't help the administration to give encouragement to these miscreants. Give them that and the next thing they'll demand is resignations and investigations, etc.

So I'm all for letting them sit in the dark and rage in vain, as per usual.

So I'm all for letting them sit in the dark and rage in vain, as per usual.

Though for humanitarian reasons, I would allow them occasional visits from John McCain.

Where we house these idiots is immaterial, at least to me, but the debate over it is taking all the oxygen out of far more important matters

A cynic might say that's intentional...

if they take up arms agains, thats Kharzais problem.

Don't we still have soldiers in Afghanistan? I forget...

By the way, releasing enemies who will take up arms against an ally isn't usually considered friendly.

You might consider Guantanamo etc. to be black holes, but the real black holes are the places these young and violent fanatics come from in the first place. The real black hole is the place in their mind where rational thought should reside, but is instead full of hate filled religiosity and bigotry. Better the black hole where they can harm no one, than the black hole that inevitably leads to the mass death of innocents.

The mainstream Democratic view of the war on terror and post-9/11 has changed to the point where it's all the US and GWB's fault. That we deserved to be attacked for offending Muslims. Feinstein and Biden both hold this view to varying degrees.

Kevin Drum's site has regular postings on how the Twin Towers were part of some controlled demolition, and that the solution to the problem is release all the prisoners, get out of Iraq, send Bush and the Administration to Hague for War Crimes and apologize to bin Laden.

Dems are no more serious about defending this country than a Saudi prince. Giving in to them on ANYTHING is useless and self-defeating. It's analogous to giving into the German-American Bund during WWII. Bush understands that the Media is so hostile that ANY RESPONSE will be twisted or ignored, so they simply cut them out. It's like shouting into the partisan wind coming from James Carville. The Media is indistinguishable from Howard Dean.

The rest, the ones who are higher up, or still are useful for intell, you disperse through the Gul- er, system.

Thanks for that, liberhawk, at least its clear where you stand on this issue. I didn't realize you were in the 'Gulag' crowd. Please explain to use how exactly Gitmo is a gulag based on everything you know. Please, enlighten us. Share your understanding of the Soviet Gulags, and then compare and contrast to Gitmo.

And your referral to our detention facilities as a Gulag clearly shows you would accept the next Gitmo as the next island in the archiapeligo.

Bill,

liberalhawk may not have meant that in the way you think. I read his tone differently, at any rate, more an an ironic comment on the critics than a swipe at the idea of detention systems for illegal combatants, which he seems to have few issues with. Give him a chance to clarify.

Joe,

I have to agree that the administration sorely lacks in explaining its activities to the public. My father is infuriated by this, and I have to say at times I agree. They must do a better job at laying out the process in Iraq, and articulate strategeries against Syria and Iran. But the way this administration has been treated by the press, I can understand (though do not agree with) their silence. My father says they need to bypass the media to get the word out to the American public, but this is limited in effectiveness. I wish I knew the answer.

Then my apologies to liberalhawk beforehand if I was wrong.

I agree that Bush could do much better in this area. A.L. has been harping on it since the beginning.

The thing his he doesn't have too. As long as the Democrats are completely inept WRT national defense, there's no advantage for him to put more of a message out there and many reasons not to.

Everything he says provides his adversaries an opportunity to hold him accountable for it. The less he says the less the Democrats have to use against him. In the meantime, the Democrats spew out all kinds of crap that eventually comes back on them without Bush having to do anything.

I don't really like it, but that's the state of the national debate. And it's not all Bush's fault, given the lack of a serious opposition.

Bush's and Rove's approach to this is, on reflection, nothing short of genius. Call it the rope-a-dope of politics if you want. It worked for Ali in his day.

LH:

Thanks for the praise and I agree that dispersing them is one possible option, though certainly can't imagine anyone in Congress being willing to house terrorists among their constituents. Given what Abdullah Mehsud was able to accomplish upon being released, I don't even want to think of what might happen in the event of a "jailbreak."

As for the senior al-Qaeda leadership, most of them are being housed at Diego Garcia rather than Gitmo due to the need to keep them completely isolated from the rest of the world. What you have at Gitmo is essentially a mixture of foot soldiers, financiers and other mid-level figures, but they still have plenty of potential to stir up trouble, as can be seen from what happened with Mehsud.

Of the 160+ that were actually released, about 7% returned to combat that we know of. These were the ones deemed not a great risk, so I would hate to see what would happen if the more threatening characters were let go. The fact is these detainees were caught while in combat with American forces out of uniform, and can and should be detained until we deem it is safe for them to be released.

Bill — People aren't "terrorist" or not the same way that they're Rh+ or not. It's entirely to be expected that some detainees will become terrorists while imprisoned, either due to the influence of other inmates, or in reaction to their treatment at the hand of the US military.

Out of curiosity, under what conditions would you consider it "safe" to release the prisoners?

it's entirely to be expected that some detainees will become terrorists

Breathtaking ... what are you doing in PolPots old killing fields, helping to repolish the evil leftism that created them ?

Ohh thats right .. in leftist states .. the innocents in the society are on the inside of the prison and the butchers are the prison gaurds.

"liberalhawk may not have meant that in the way you think. I read his tone differently, at any rate, more an an ironic comment on the critics than a swipe at the idea of detention systems for illegal combatants, which he seems to have few issues with. Give him a chance to clarify"

You are correct, essentially. For a group like amnesty international, which we count on to give us serious reports on human rights, to make the analogy to the Soviet Gulag was of course wrong. Millions of folks living in slavery, etc. Ive read the first volume of Gulag archipelago, A day in the life of Ivan denisovitch, First circle, and cancer ward. I well understand the difference.

On the other hand the notion (which I was proposing, BTW) of shifting prisoners around a large, dispersed network of prisoners is JUST redolent enough of the Gulag to justify a slightly ironic reference. If someone wants to object that to treat say, Auschwitz as lightly, would have been out of bounds, and that it was therefore improper to do so wrt the Gulag, I apologize. Im used to posting in places where there is rather more humor and irony.

"if they take up arms agains, thats Kharzais problem.

Don't we still have soldiers in Afghanistan? I forget..."

Of course we do, but I doubt that a max of a couple of hundred more foot soldiers, all IDed and fingerprinted, is a huge threat to them. If its a serious threat at all, its to Kharzai.

"By the way, releasing enemies who will take up arms against an ally isn't usually considered friendly. "

Fine. Dont release them then. Rend them over to Kharzai, and let HIM hold them.

Even if the released prisoners don't go back to fighting for the Taliban or al Qaeda, a lot of them are still violent misogynists who think violent misogyny is worth fighting to defend. There's something to be said for sensitivity-training the hell out of them and not letting them go until it's quite certain they're not going to return to brutalizing any women they mildly disapprove of.

Be interesting to see how the press would react to that, too.

This genesis for this post occured to me when I reread this poem Memorial Day. It was not posted because the subject matter was not about our military and their responsibiliities. It is about ours and our elected officials.
This post my Dan Darling seems like the appropiate place. This is not it in its entirety but I would like to get it started.:

In Flanders Fields
JOhn McCrae

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Betweem the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and we lie
In Flanders fields

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

I italicized two words to ask what our elected officials responsibilities are here at this juncture in the GWOT. I have heard nothing, not even in the speeches given to the military graduates of our academies nor elsewhere that is to remeind and continue to rally our nation around the torch. I am not expecting June 4 1940 "We shall fight them on the beaches" nor this from Jan 1933, "This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself�nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."
But there should be something like this: "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;"

I fear that the war has become to distant in the telling of its purpose and why we have entered into it. I sense that the torch is falling because no one in government is explaining why we are there and will continue to be there. I sense those that intiated it have lost faith in there not explaining the GWOT as an ongoing event in our lives.

At this blog much effort is made to show how progress is being made in the GWOT. Bill Roggio constantly points out the correct why to analyse the ground war phase, others talk of the rebuilding of the Iraqi and Afghan economies and Dan who the terrorists are. But the President has not given a speech to the American public to remind them of what is at stake.
He needs to come on TV and play for the American public the beheading of Nicholas Berg or any of the others, an actual carbombing against the Iraqi or Afghan people and the results of anyone tortured in either country in full living color. The blood, guts and horror need to be shown as not some hopped up version of Grand Theft Auto. He needs to read from a jihadist terrorism manual pointing out how they view everyone as the enemy. He needs to get in front of a map and name names places where we recieve support and those places we don't. He needs to tell how and where Jihadist terror cells have been broken up at home and what their targets were.
My business experience has shown me how much America is a here and now country. As we drift into summer and focus on the increasingly irrelevant news cycle and the GWOT becomes an extraneous over there event any shock will come to a body politic that has forgotten. And we will have broken faith.