Guantanmo and Geneva

The left is up in arms about the treatment of the Tablian prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay. Listening to the specifics of their complaints reveals the breathtaking ignorance of their position. But I'll get to that in a moment.

Now, there's nothing wrong with ignorance. We're all born ignorant, and sometimes, to compound matters, we're mis-educated along the way. But the answer to ignorance is either learning or disengagement. In short, if you have no idea what you're talking about, shut up, or get a book. Or use Google. Try to learn something before you demand to run the world and dictate policy to those more competant and informed than you. Please?

Getting back to the matter at hand: The first complaint is that John Ashcroft is holding these people without a trial. This reminds me of the old joke: "How many animals of each kind did Moses take aboard the ark with him?" The correct answer isn't "two" -- the answer is that Moses wasn't the ark-dude.

Likewise, Ashcroft isn't the Gitmo-dude. Guantanamo Bay is a military base, and taking armed combatants prisoner was a military action. John Ashcroft is head of the Department of Justice, not the military, and thus had nothing to do with this decision.

I find it appalling that people who can't even tell the difference between civilians and soldiers imagine they are competant to dictate national policy.

The next problem, we're told, is that this "violates international law".
Once again, as far as I can see, ignorance reigns supreme. The "law" in question is purportedly the Geneva Convention. According to Article 4, an army is entitled to it's protections only if it fulfills all the following conditions:

(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;

(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;

(c) That of carrying arms openly;

(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

If an army does not obey these rules, it does not qualified for the protections the Geneva Convention affords. In particular, combantants must fight with a "fixed distinctive sign" which separated soldiers from civilians -- some kind of uniform or insignia.

The reason this is important is to minimize civilian casualties by allowing the enemy to limit their fire to "fair game". Combatants who violate this norm -- i.e. who dress in a way to hide among civilians -- are basicly indirectly killing their own people, and are not entitled to protection any more than a man who grabs a woman or child and uses them as a "living shield".

Believe it or not, such codes were created for a purpose -- to minimize civilian casualties by ensuring a distinction between soldiers and civilians. The carrot to ensure this treatment is the humane treatments afforded by the Convention. The stick is its less-humane treatement possible otherwise.

When argue we must guarantee the desired reward (Geneva Convention protections) to those who openly and flagrantly violate said conventions, we defeat the entire puprose of such conventions, and actively encourage civilian casualties and their use of unarmed combatants as human shields.

Well-meaning or not, that is what the left is doing.

Enter Judge Robertson

Recently, the US put Osama bin Laden's driver -- Salim Ahmed Hamdan, one of the Gitmo detainees -- before a tribunal in order to decide what should be done with him. On Monday, Federal District Judge James Robertson ruled that the US had no right to make such decisions, aruging OBL's driver could possibly be considered a POW, and directed the military to stop the proceeding.

What evidence did the judge cite to show this person was a POW? What international law did Robertson show was being violated? I'm no expert, and don't have access to his entire ruling, but far as I can see from the coverage, none were cited.

Instead, it seems Robertson's argument is based in his feelings about what would be wisest, not what is, in fact, legal:

To demonstrate the risk that these Guantanamo precedents would pose to US soldiers captured in the future, the judge referred to the case of a US warrant officer detained by a Somali warlord in 1993. Washington asked the warlord to respect the Geneva Conventions in handling the soldier. Robertson, himself a former Navy officer, noted that if the conventions were applied as narrowly as the government has applied them in the case of the Afghan detainees, the US soldier's captors "would not be bound to follow the convention because they were not a `state.' "

Please note: The judge is not speaking here about what is legal. He is instead saying if we gave enemy combatants lawyers and other nicities, our enemies in the future might treat our own people better. If we treat them well, they'll treat us well.

One could just as easily argue that if we treat them well it would lead to our enemies having less fear of provoking war against us, and, since they already ignore the Geneva Conventions and try to kill us, there's no reason to expect them to be touched by our gracious to those among them we've captured.

But neither argument is salient: Judge Robertson's sentiments may be a nice feeling to have, but they're sure not a citation of international law. Further, it can be argued a judge's job is to enforce existing law, not create new law (a power belonging to Congress) or usurp the powers of the executive branch.

Which brings us to someone who made a similar point...

Ashcroft and the ACLU

Ashcroft recently complained to a group of lawyers about such decisions, expressing similar concerns:

The danger I see here is that intrusive judicial oversight and second-guessing of presidential determinations in these critical areas can put at risk the very security of our nation in a time of war.

And:

Ideologically driven courts have disregarded and dismissed the president's evaluations of foreign policy concerns, in favor of theories generated by academic elites, foreign bodies and judicial imagination.

We are now confronted by a profoundly disturbing trend in our national political life: the growing tendency of the judicial branch to inject itself into areas of executive action originally assigned to the discretion of the president. These encroachments include some of the most fundamental aspects of the president's conduct of the war on terrorism.

And:

Without mentioning [the Hamdan] case specifically, Ashcroft criticized rulings he said found "expansive private rights in treaties where they never existed" that run counter to the broad discretionary powers given to the president by the Constitution.

"Courts are not equipped to execute the law. They are not accountable to the people," Ashcroft said.

Indeed.

And all this gives the director of the ACLU an opportunity to make a most Orwellian statement in response -- one which seems to have gotten far more coverage than Robertson's decision or Ashcroft's complaint:

"The nation's top law enforcement officer today expressed his clear disdain for the rule of law," ACLU executive director Anthony Romero said in a statement. "The Bush administration and its attorney general nominee should immediately denounce today's comments by outgoing Attorney General John Ashcroft."

And:

"It's entirely in line with his overt hostility to dissent, debate and judicial review," Romero said. "That further underscores the need for a wholesale review of Mr. Ashcroft's policies and a new direction in the Justice Department."

Let us enter the sad, twisted, perverted world of ACLU-based reasoning.

A judge makes a binding decision with no input from the voters, no input from the executive branch, and, apparently, no basis in law.

This is, apparently, what the ACLU considers to be "debate."

John Ashcroft speaks out against it in a private meeting. In a society which, actually, debates such things. He voices his non-binding opinion that he disagrees.

In the world of the ACLU, this neither dissent nor debate. Instead, it is depicted as the opposite: the crushing of dissent, and squelching of debate.

Judges take the law into their own hands, replacing or augmenting it with their personal ideas as they see fit. In the world of the ACLU, this is "rule of law". (In my world, this is lawlessness itself, and disrespect for law and government.)

When John Ashcroft simply says he disagrees with a specific judge's ruling, this is, according to the ACLU, "clear disdain for the rule of law."

Yet how dare he voice any criticism of these judges, or question their actions? Why you'd think that was ... dissent ... or even debate! How dare anyone question or challenge a judge. Look at the law, and you'll find such questions and challenges are allowed and legal, and are a healthy part of democracy. But to the ACLU, they are a sinister sign of it's absence.

And thus you can see how twisted the ACLU has become; their complaints are classic projection.

It is they who want to see all law-making ability, and executive priviledge concentrated in the hands of a few judges, rather than our duly elected officials. And thus they charge anyone who disagrees with "clear disdain for the rule of law."

And it is they who wish to stiffle official debate and dissent. Which is why they charge anyone who dares to question this situation with "overt hostility to dissent" and "debate", even if he does so in a debate forum!

This may be convincing to journalists, but I wasn't born yesterday.

Enter the Press

And convincing to journalists, it was indeed. They did their job by depicting his comments in an equally Orwellian fashion. ABC, for example, gave this story the twisted title: "Ashcroft Condemns Judges Who Question Bush". The Seattle Post-Intelligencer followed the same tact.

But that's a lie: Judge Robertson didn't "question" President Bush, rather he countermanded the administration. And the "questioning" here was being done by Ashcroft, not Robertson. There was no debate at all on Robinson's side, just a rule composed of 45 pages of his own opinion. Ashcroft's point is now being (or should be) debated among the public.

Look, I think a debate about Guantanamo is a good and healthy thing. But, lacking clear law, the job falls to the executive and legislative branches to decide, not an unelected judge who can't seem to produce and cite the line of law which supports his pet theories about what's best for us.

And I would have had no issue with the ACLU if they would simply have disagreed with Ashcroft's opinions, or felt that the judge had chosen a wise decision, or argued that Congress should have gotten involved here.

But to depict actions taken by activist judges as "rule of law" and characterize dissent and debate as the crushing of dissent shows what an intellectually perverted organization the ACLU has become.