President Barack Obama’s recently signed Executive Orders, banning enhanced interrogation techniques and closing the Guantanamo (GITMO) prison facility, were met with applause from the political left and horror from the political right. So continues the politics of counterterrorism. President George W. Bush used the “Global War on Terror” for a measure of political gain. And now President Obama, unrestrained and similarly guilty of making statements regarding his own goals on counterterrorism, has brazenly pandered to voters without explaining the true dangers that lie ahead.
Enhanced interrogation techniques include sleep deprivation, alteration of diet, placement in stress positions and water boarding. All of these techniques were employed by the George W. Bush administration on three specific members of Al Qaeda: September 11th mastermind, Khaled Sheikh Mohammad; his replacement as Al Qaeda Chief of Operations, Ramzi Bin Al Shibi; and Abd al-Rahim al Nashiri. All men have admitted publicly that they are not only guilty of participating in the planning of catastrophic attacks (meaning mass murder) of U.S. citizens but are proud of their actions. The decision made to employ enhanced techniques against these three individuals produced intelligence that allowed for the decapitation of Al Qaeda’s second tier. Whether one agrees with President George W. Bush’s decision on this matter or not, it is important to understand that at the time of their capture, each of these men were working toward the goal of killing as many Americans as possible while Al Qaeda had simultaneously sought and obtained a fatwa (or religious ruling) from a cleric to employ a nuclear weapon against the United States.
President Obama’s pledge to halt enhanced interrogation techniques was a central theme of his campaign. The decision now limits both United States military forces and the CIA to the U.S. Army Military Field Manual. This betrays the fact that the new President and those advising him either do not comprehend the reality of what is occurring in terms of military interrogations—or, more alarmingly, they have chosen not to understand. The truth is that the manual’s instructions are utterly ineffective. As an example, under the current U.S. Army Field Manual, you may ask a suspect once, and only once, if he or she has committed a violent act. Asking a second time is considered badgering and is a violation. Ironically, this means that though an American citizen in the U.S. can be questioned intensely, a terrorist captured on the battlefield—knee deep in the bodies of his victims—can only be asked a particular question once. In order to come to terms with these types of incongruities, the White House urgently needs to send someone into the field. Someone who can examine and thoroughly monitor the entire cycle: from combat to prisoner capture, from questioning to incarceration.
President Obama’s campaign rhetoric and political ambition also outweighed any desire for a detailed and honest evaluation of what is being done with the prisoners held in Guantanamo. I am not in favor of enhanced interrogation techniques as a routine practice. However, should someone be found with WMD material or found to be a participant in an effort to conduct a catastrophic attack on the homeland, a President can not afford to wholly disarm himself of the option to employ such techniques. To do so, in this age of technology and terror, would be an act of extreme folly. It would expose our families to grave danger. President Obama would be wise to consider President Abraham Lincoln’s rationale for abrogating Habeus Corpus during the Civil War. Stated succinctly, Lincoln explained: “[t]he Constitution of the United States is not a suicide pact.”
The closure of GITMO and specifically the future of those housed in that facility is a subject that should concern all of us. The Bush Administration failed to make tough decisions on the matter. There are at least one hundred prisoners in GITMO that fit the category of Enemy Combatant. According to the Geneva Convention, the United States can justifiably, and in accordance with international norms, execute these individuals as marauders. President Bush’s failure to deal with the status of such killers in an expeditious fashion and his decision to simply pass them on to the Obama Administration was not helpful in the least. Former Bush administration officials no longer deserve the right to even comment on the status of the detainees; they had their chance and sadly voted present. For his part, President Obama needs to ensure that any transfer of GITMO prisoners into the custody of other nations is done so on the condition of predetermined sentencing guidelines. Those that do remain in US custody need to face some form of judicial process. Without these sorts of substantive steps—and without policies based on honest and comprehensive evaluation—we fail to address the toughest and most important issues at hand. Such is the politics of counterterrorism.
It is so frustrating as an American when I read pieces as this one, and hear my President make decisions that are not the correct choices, due to a lack of understanding-or the unwilling ability to know the situation on the ground. So many people I know live in this western state of mind thinking that our enemies play ball with the same set of rules that we do, and we should adjust accordingly.
President Obama and his decision to close GITMO, and deactivate our interrogations techniques boils down to one Sun Tzu strategy - Know Your Enemy. The President and many other political bureaucrats refuse to listen to the guy on ground, and fail to understand the enemies culture, terrain, folklore, customs, and methods of waging war. This alone tells you how to destroy your enemy, not technology and democracy though it helps. To put it frankly, politicians need to stay out the way of the military and intelligence units operating this war, and the higher echelons of the military/intelligence leadership need to stop being so political and just fight.
Posted by: Larry | February 25, 2009 at 01:21 PM