My Thoughts on Obama’s “Gitmo” Speech

This is 2 or 3 weeks old, but I thought it would be worth sharing. Since I’m at work, I can’t really devote

the time to type out a proper article, so instead I shall just paste the conversation I had with my friend

about Obama’s speech a while back. Conversational style should be quite an interesting way to explore a topic anyway.

Anyway, just as a starter for you guys to understand what we’re talking about: Obama gave a speech a few weeks back about closing Guantanamo Bay. What was alarming was his proposal for a new legal system where terrorist suspects could be held indefinitely in the US without trial.

This is disturbing because it goes against the US values for personal rights, and its current system of justice. It threatens to undermine the system of checks and balances upon which the country is constructed, and is honestly something most people would have expected from Bush. Put simply: Obama wants to make it so that the government can lock up people as long as they want without charges. This kind of "justice" is exactly why we had elected Obama and his movement for Change in the first place. How different is this system from what Bush had before? It’s essentially Obama closing Guantanamo Bay, and just opening new prison camps elsewhere.

If you need more details about the speech, you can read about it here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/23/us/politics/23detain.html?_r=1&hp

Essentially what follows below is the discussion between me and my friend over this policy of indefinite detention, with my friend Michael defending Obama.

me: wow obama’s speech is quite the shocker

Michael: haha hi

me: hi
US political news is still just as depressing half the world away..

Michael: are you talking about the Gitmo speech?

me: yeah, the "prolonged detention"

Michael: well, you didn’t expect an easy solution to gitmo, did you? i mean, it’s not like a concentration camp, where you just come in and liberate them

me: I’d expect trials at least
don’t see the justice in a system that just locks up people you can’t convict…
i mean what’s the purpose of having a justice system if you’ll just lock up those you can’t get evidence for

Michael: well, we do it all the time, right, with POWs

me: but those aren’t indefinite
wars usually only last a few years
and you catch them in uniform

Michael: yup

me: hence likelihood of a mistake is minimal
here you may be dragging people out of their homes and off the street
gitmo got some cases wrong
why wouldn’t obama? it’s just really disturbing
and we haven’t even touched the slippery slope argument
UK has a similar policy but the limit is 42 days
and that was only barely passed

Michael: well, i mean it’s a tougher situation, because the conflict is more vague, you know. like, these
guys don’t wear uniforms, so it’s hard to catch them in one. and they live sometimes normal lives except for
also participating in terror orgs

me: but shouldn’t there always be proof?
again – why have a justice system if evidence isn’t necessary

Michael: not always. so israel does these blanket punishment schemes, where they have a neighborhood curfew
for example, b/c they don’t know who specifically in the area is doing bad things, but they know someone is,
so they punish everyone. it’s tough, but it works sometimes.

me: sure

Michael: so when we capture POWs, as you said there’s little error b/c they’re wearing uniforms. but that’s
not necessarily evidence that they’re doing anything bad, just that they signed up with this cause and
therefore we can capture them. okay, so what happens if we’re fighting someone w/o a uniform? does that mean
we can’t capture them? that we can only capture them in the act?

me: well we aren’t taking POWs because they’re doing anything bad per se
it’s because we know they will just turn around and kill us if we let them go
and there’s solid proof – ie. they are wearing those uniforms. and it doesn’t mean we can’t capture those w/o
a uniform. nor does it mean we can only capture them in the act. it Should mean though that we ought to have
proof at the very least that will stand under scrutiny in a court
and if not, you let them go after a while at the very least
in the end it comes down to one argument – if you can justify putting someone away indefinitely without
evidence that is convincing, then why bother having the justice system that we have today?
shouldn’t we also just be combing through ganglands and rounding everyone up?
isn’t that awfully 1984?
should we start imprisoning people for thoughtcrimes next?

Michael: well not really. i mean there’s a difference between justice applied to US citizens and foreigners.
i don’t think it’s right. i think we’re still trying to figure out how our courts should treat non-US
citizens. but i don’t think we’ve figured it out yet.

me: shouldn’t they treat non-US citizens the same way?

Michael: that due process thing you’re talking about — evidence, and prolonged internment — well it doesn’t
really apply to foreigners. like the US never claimed that we will use the constitution to deal with people
who fight against us. that’s why there’s the geneva convention – cause the constitution doesn’t talk about
any of this

me: justice is not the exclusive right of US citizens… it is founded on the basis of being human
I don’t really buy the argument that denying foreigners due process is justifiable simply because they don’t
have a US passport…
whenever we argue about rights and liberties in govvie classes citizenship has never come up

Michael: well, they’re govvie, not law classes right? like we argue in college about abstract notions, not
specific applications

me: but my issue with obama’s policy is not whether it breaks the law
it’s simply that it’s not Right
the law is just a tool to help us get to a state of justice
and if I were to commit a crime in the states now, I would be tried in a US court

Michael: so how do you reconcile it? like you’re here saying that you need to try and convict/release; and
some general might be saying, we need to detain until we confirm/deny danger

me: I don’t think it would seem remotely appropriate that I be locked up without trial simply because I’m a
foreigner
There’s not perfect solution. But put in a time limit

Michael: and how do you figure out what to base it on?

me: you can always benchmark 😉

Michael: hehe

me: or you can take a poll
based on the exercise of veil of ignorance
imagine that you might be wrongfully detained for the sake of national security. How long will you be willing
to be held without proof, as part of this unpleasant but necessary exercise?
the other argument against it is: if it’s the bigwigs you’re after, I don’t believe you can’t find evidence
to convict. So far US has convicted quite a few already

Michael: popular justice, haha, i like it

me: and if you’re worried you can’t convict the mid level / junior terrorists, letting 1% of that population
go really won’t make that much of a difference
it’s not like imprisoning the tom dick and harry of terrorists is really going to impact national security to
any large degree
there’s plenty more of those out there.

Michael: so why do you think obama decided to go with prolonger detention?
*prolonged

me: Even superheroes have their flaws…
no, but seriously
I think it’s cos he finally has had a look at the dossier on the people currently in gitmo and he doesn’t
want to let them go
And I understand that… but I think he’s missing the bigger picture
I am a pretty stronger believer in the end justifying the means… but in this case such a system is just too
big a contradiction
to the western idea of justice… and it really could set a very dangerous precedent

Michael: i dunno. i mean, here was a guy with good intentions, smart guy, more so – who promised to change
the gitmo picture – and he takes a look at the evidence and decided to pretty much keep it as is… makes me
really wonder what he saw

me: yeah…

Michael: i think a big part of it is the complexity of the whole thing – hard to get out of the "enemy
combatant" mess

me: I’m a big proponent of the benevolent dictator
but not when i’m not the one running the show…
haha
I can definitely see the attractiveness of just imprisoning people that you just Know are bad, without having
to cater to the opinions of the masses.
But will our dear benevolent leader be around to lead always?

Michael: i don’t know about precedent… people overuse that i think. there was that whole Korematzu mess
during WWII, where we threw japanese in concentration camps. that could’ve been a bad precedent, but then the
US SC said it was a bad thing – way afterwards, and no precedent was set. at least that i know of

me: so you’re admitting to either
a) it will be a bad precedent, or
b) we will all realise one day that this is a low point in US history and that it was absolutely wrong?
doesn’t seem appealing either way

Michael: i just don’t think this type of action would set a bad precedent. like, it’s not binding on future
action, cause we always seem to be revisiting our past.

me: why don’t you think this policy won’t survive till the next president?

Michael: that if we do it now, there’s always a chance that we’ll think it’s bad later on – i’m not admitting
that we will – but the fact that we might, and often do, kinda kills the precedent thing

me: sorry about the double negatives
it kills the precedent thing but then you’d be admitting we’re wrong to do this in the first place

Michael: yea. well the US has a long history of admitting it was wrong in the first place. haha

me: so why not just refrain from doing it in the first place
plus the war on terror doesn’t look like it will go away
unlike the WWII
so will this really end?
I’d be really tempted to expand on this program, if it were me.

Michael: yea that’s really the big problem. that we decided to brand this thing a war. instead of like
peacekeeping action in afghanistan’. that could’ve been easy

me: not going into Iraq would have helped too
lol someone left a comment:
It’s precrime without the precogs.
have you seen minority report?

Michael: yes
good movie. i love sci fi

What do you guys think?