The Gitmo Conundrum?
When did Americans become so frightened? When did we lose confidence in ourselves, our system of justice and our resiliency? I guess the answer is: 9-11. No longer protected by our two shinning seas, we felt suddenly vulnerable--and of course we were and are vulnerable. In this we join the rest of the world.
Bombs have been going off in England since WWII and continued with Irish Republican Army terrorist blasts and now there is Muslim terror and there have been multiple bombings. But they do not quake in fear. In Italy there was a Red Brigade. In Germany the Bader Meinhoff Gang--all well before Al Qaeda and Hezbollah sponsored terrorism. In Spain, the ETA, the Basque separatist organization has been blowing people up for a couple of decades, and Al Qaeda wreaked terror on Madrid. But all these governments and people go on with their lives and do not seem to run away from their laws and traditions. It is not that they are unafraid. Courage is not the lack of fear; it is living despite the fear.
Israel, which has been under relentless attacks of bombs and rockets for decades, goes about its day-to-day business. People walk, shop, go to pizza parlors, enjoy the beach and live their lives. Israel arrests terrorists, tries them, jails them and then often trades them for dead Israeli soldiers. In other words, they release proven enemy combatants back to the enemy. They have some sense that some, or even many, of these former prisoners will come back at them with acts of violence. After all, they are sending them home--only miles from Israel.
We claim to be stymied by 230 enemy combatants at Gitmo. "Oh what shall we do?" we wail. These "are the worst of the worst," we assert without having tried them. "What," we wonder, "shall we do if we release them? Might they come back to haunt us or even kill us?" The answer is, Yes, they might. So we sit paralyzed. We can't try them because we either lack proof or got proof through torture. We can't send some of them to their birthplaces because they might be tortured. (No, I don't understand either.) We can't put them in our jails because they might corrupt our own gentle homegrown killers, rapists and terrorists. Huh?
This is not a serious problem in terms of our safety or security. If tiny Israel can release proven terrorists by the thousands, are we really going to be thrown by 230 sent back to the Middle East Afghanistan and Pakistan?
Yes, one or two might make their way back in our direction. But it is not very likely. Yes, some, or even many, might rejoin the fight against us. But they would be joining millions who already hate us and hundreds of thousands who are already committed to doing us harm. Our prisoners--or detainees--in Gitmo are a statistically insignificant threat to us.
So why are we tied up in knots over them? It is very simple. This is political cowardice. The detainees at Gitmo can legitimately be called the "Bani-Horton." They are truly the "Children of Willie Horton," the paroled killer in Massachusetts, who killed again while on parole and was used to sink the candidacy of Michael Dukakis.
Republicans fear those who were released under Bush and are trying to put responsibility for any other released detainees' bad acts on the Democrats. Both parties live in terror that one Gitmo alumnus will become not the Willie Horton of propagandistic fear, but a real killer who perpetrates a dramatic act of violence against America or American interests. The odds are against it, but there is that chance. So rather than make us safer by closing Gitmo, the politicians chose to make our nation less safe while protecting themselves. Nice.
©2009 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.org
Sometime we forget that Europe and most of the world got accustomed to have in-house local violence. Last Century started with World War One. Twenty year later we went into World War Two. In between those wars, Spain got nearly destroyed by a civilian war and bombed by German Air Force. After 1945 came the Korean war, and the Vietnam war. The only time American civilian got hit at home it was in December of 1941 and that was in Hawaii, far away from the mainland. When 9/11 hit the mainland we went to pieces, and we still don't know what to do.
We have come to believe in our on invulnerability (enforced by two oceans for decades) and in our own superiority (pure arrogance) that our educational propaganda has falsely ingrained into generations who actually swallowed it, rather than develop a wider world view. That we had an incompetent regime in power at 911, who had a vested interest in furthering the cause of American business interests (the money they always serve) by magnifying the angst to serve their own ends in the fraudulent invasion of Iraq (who had NOTHING to do with 911), only reinforces the world perception that we are just plain idiots.
Now Dick Cheney is on a "Re-light the Lie" tour, fanning the flames of fear to justify his criminal actions in the face of charges that are about to come. The American public will probably fall to the repetitive nature of his advertising campaign and swallow it as easily as they were sold inferior products in the past, like light beer, Wonder Bread, Pop-Tarts and wine (like) products in a box. We are truly pathetic.
Interesting point, Dante.