46 lines
3.0 KiB
Plaintext
46 lines
3.0 KiB
Plaintext
Secret prisons
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<p>I’m having real trouble understanding the current flap over allegations that<br />
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the CIA is running secret overseas prisons for terrorists and enemy combatants.<br />
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I would prefer not to believe this is just another outbreak of reflexive<br />
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anti-Americanism, but I don’t see any principled case against what is<br />
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being alleged. Can anyone explain it to me?</p>
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<p><span id="more-238"></span></p>
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<p>Now, mind you, if there were any reason at all to believe American<br />
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citizens were being shipped off to these hypothetical gulags I would<br />
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be screaming bloody murder. I believe even American citizens taken<br />
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under arms as enemy combatants are entitled to the protections<br />
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guaranteed by the Constitution. Violating the rights of non-combatant<br />
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Americans in this way would be even worse — grounds for<br />
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impeachment of every official in the chain of command, up to and<br />
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including the President.</p>
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<p>But the U.S. government has no constitutional, legal, or moral<br />
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obligation to treat foreign terrorists or foreign enemy combatants as<br />
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though they were American citizens. The laws of the host country<br />
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might apply, but even that much is not clear if the locations are on<br />
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U.S. military bases (often, by treaty or agreement, these are<br />
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administered under U.S. military law).</p>
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<p>I do think we have a moral obligation to treat such prisoners<br />
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humanely. But the outrage being ginned up isn’t over any alleged<br />
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inhumanity, it’s against the U.S. having such facilities at all. And<br />
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I don’t get that. Back during the Cold War, not even the Left bleated<br />
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over Communist-bloc agents being immured in similar conditions; what<br />
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makes jihadi and Baathist terrorists any more deserving of anyone’s<br />
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tender-mindedness?</p>
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<p>To be clear, I recognize the obvious political and moral dangers of<br />
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having such a system; they have to be traded off against the lives<br />
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that are saved by the intelligence it collects and by keeping hardened<br />
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terrists out of play. But it seems to me that’s a debate that should<br />
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be confined to American domestic politics, and conducted with<br />
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circumspection even there lest it provide political cover for our<br />
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enemies.</p>
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<p>Instead, we have European politicians mouthing off about denying<br />
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the U.S. overflight rights and demanding more public disclosure. That<br />
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is out of line; whether those prisons exist and what goes on there is<br />
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to be decided by (a) Americans, (b) the host countries, and (c)<br />
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<em>nobody else</em>. This is an elementary application of the same<br />
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rules of sovereignity that Europeans treat with such fastidious<br />
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tenderness when an anti-American dictator is the beneficiary.</p>
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<p>As I said, I’d like to believe this flap isn’t just the routine<br />
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and unjustified U.S.-bashing I’ve come to expect. But I’m not<br />
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optimistic.</p>
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