Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald wonders why the Obama system of justice for the prisoners of GWOT is evolving in this way:

“…… If you really think about the argument Obama made yesterday — when he described the five categories of detainees and the procedures to which each will be subjected — it becomes manifest just how profound a violation of Western conceptions of justice this is. What Obama is saying is this: we’ll give real trials only to those detainees we know in advance we will convict. For those we don’t think we can convict in a real court, we’ll get convictions in the military commissions I’m creating. For those we can’t convict even in my military commissions, we’ll just imprison them anyway with no charges (“preventively detain” them).”

With this paragraph he basically answers his own question. The biggest fear the administration has is to have one of the detainees be found not guilty due to evidence provided by torture which would free that person on U.S. soil to where they could potential commit another terrorist act. And just imagine the reaction from the public if that happened. The Obamaites are no fools.

The strum und drang over the fate of our prisoners has always amused me. Perhaps I’m being naive or dumb, but it always seemed to me that the easiest solution was to declare our prisoners just that, prisoners of war. Make Gitmo or any place else that wants them a standard POW camp governed under the Geneva Convention and hold said prisoners for the duration of the war and then decide what to do with them afterward. Is some merit trials for war crimes, then establish a Nuremberg-like tribunal for them.

It’s that too simplistic? Maybe it is for the day of age when nations do not declare war against each other any more.  Certainly the U.S. has not done so since World War II. Is it any coincidence all the conflicts since then have not ended in clear cut victory? And yet we are constantly told we are a nation at war.  But how can that be when there are no bond drives, no conscription, no victory gardens or rationing or any kind of sacrifices or adjustments society usually makes when at war. Indeed, we may very well be the first wartime nation whose leaders ask the public not for sacrifice, but for more consumption.

And when one of our main leaders comes up with a plan to take out our enemies in this war, he orders the nation’s intelligence service to violate the law and keep it from the public’s elective representatives. Why would you need to do this if we are at war? Aren’t we all on the same team?

The Obama Administration is heading down the same path of “you can have it all” polices offered by its predecessors. Stimulus packages and public health care options perhaps would be more readily accepted if the didn’t add on to already fearful price tag of deficit spending. But apparently it has dawned on exactly nobody within the West Wing that ending the GWOT could help the nation’s economic picture. No, not withstanding out latest glorious offensive in Afghanistan, its going to take more money and U.S. troops to obtain something that could be at least called “victory” in a messy sort of way. That’s what Gen. McChrystal believes.

Thus you have another Administration unwilling to marshal the nation’s resources for war and yet also unwilling budget properly for war or to make it priority. Apparently the war is just another spending program.

And thus the Unwar continues on….

Filed under: War