June 12, 2005

Guantanamo Critics are in a First-Class Snit

The sleuths of Amnesty International (London), International Red Cross Union (Geneva) and the American Civil Liberties Union (New York City) are in a first- class snit over Gitmo.

Irene Khan, secretary-general of Amnesty, declared in her annual report three weeks ago: “Guantanamo has become the gulag of our times.”

Even liberal media types admit that comparing the Guantanamo prison for 585 criminal terrorists -- to Soviet “gulag” internment camps where 1.6 million people died of forced labor and starvation – is reprehensible. .

Be it remembered that Amnesty sprang up in the London anti-Vietnam war hysteria. The International Red Cross Union is notoriously anti-American and not the American Red Cross. The ACLU is a group of busybodies intent on stamping out religion and private enterprise in the United States.

Former President Jimmy Carter -- chairing a “Human Rights Conference” in Atlanta -- called on President Bush to shut down the Guantanamo Bay prison.

“The U.S. continues to suffer a blow to our reputation as a champion of human rights because of reports concerning abuses of prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo”

Enemy combatants held at Guantanamo were caught with weapons supporting the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Fifteen “detainees” have been cleared of being combatants but are still held because their home countries won’t take them.

Much has been made of “mistreatment” of criminal thugs at Gitmo -- sleep-deprivation, stressful body positions, insults, and desecration of Islam.

They are mentally deranged thugs who televise the torture of victims before beheading them.

They are masked assassins who toss bombs into mosques, schools and market places to intimidate placid citizens trying to survive.

Pacifists like Carter and the anti-American cabal make much ado about the Geneva Convention and its signatory rules for treatment of war prisoners.

This is a stretch of intent. War is conducted by nations with borders and soldiers in recognizable uniforms. Terrorists are stateless and go about in ordinary clothing with concealed weapons of indiscriminate effect. Their leaders did not sign the Geneva Convention.

When Osama bin Laden’s terrorists hijacked four passenger-planes – crashing three of them into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon killing 3,000 people – they committed the worst offense prohibited by the Geneva Convention. They struck defenseless civilians without warning or provocation.

For such acts, before and since, terrorists are common criminals subject to being shot on sight, no quarter given. So let us forget the specious Geneva Convention in the Guantanamo circumstances.

The review processes currently at Gitmo are in place after Supreme Court decisions saying they were necessary. The justices recognized that combatant cases should be reviewed and suggested these might be handled by military tribunals rather than civilian courts.

Contrary to what critics say, we have gone too far in trying to appease them.

The Gitmo prisoners still in custody are very dangerous and were trained to be devious. To them, the Quran is a prop for claims of disrespect for their religion.

Nowhere in the Geneva Convention is it written that combat prisoners must be provided a holy book.

You don’t give religious fanatics religious tools for mischief. It is sufficient to provide them the services of a U.S. Army chaplain of their faith.

The ACLU systematically disses the Christian religion in America but goes wobbly in the knees when non-Christian sects whimper.

President Bush steadfastly ignores prison carpers and the calls from liberal Democrats to turn loose dangerous terrorists.

In responding to Amnesty’s diatribe -- and Carter’s call for closing Guantanamo -- Bush said: “We’re exploring all alternatives as to how best to do the main objective, which is to protect America.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld -- in Brussels for a NATO meeting last Thursday -- said closing down the detention center “would raise questions about what would happen to the prisoners.”

Shipping those psychopaths back to the countries where they were captured would solve everything. New, democratic governments in Afghanistan and Iraq would impose swift justice.

However, there is a problem.

If the detainees knew deportation to the new, free governments of their home countries -- and sure justice -- it would take a team of horses to drag them out of their cells.

Lindsey Williams is a Sun columnist who can be contacted at linwms@lindseywilliams.org