Gitmo Blues

The Battle for Guantanamo tells the story of an MP, Colonel Bumgarner, in charge of the detention facility at Gitmo. He appears to be somewhat naive and ignorant of the purpose of the facility and the kind of people who were detained there. In the end, they took advantage of his good intentions and a number of suicides succeeded, subjecting him to investigations:

“We tried to improve their lives to the extent that we can — to the point that we may have gone overboard, not recognizing the real nature of who we’re dealing with,” he said. “I thought they had proven themselves. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I did not think that they would kill themselves.”

Pathetic, yet not really his fault, given his instructions from above.

I'm not sure what to make of the story, except that it is a vivid account of the frustrations of being expected to comply with vague rules, keep order among people committed to resist and make as much trouble as possible. It's clear, to me at any rate, that the questions about how to treat terrorists in detention for interrorgation have been a moving goalpost for the people on the front line. The courts, especially the Supreme Court, as well as military officers who speak to senators in opposition to the duly constituted authorities and senators who think that it's their job to run the war and second-guess the President only succeed in confusing, meddling and frustrating our effort to defeat this enemy. The excuse that the treatment of our soldiers in some speculative future before the International Criminal Court is a distraction and a weak excuse for withholding the tools our agents need to acquire intelligence which can prevent more terrorist attacks. Terrorists are not POWs and there are very good reasons for limiting their rights when captured, especially for purposes of obtaining intelligence.

I'd rather take the pretensions of the ICC head on and give notice that we would treat detention and charging of any of our troops there as an act of war.