Entries Tagged "Guantanamo Bay"

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The Economist on Guantanamo

Maybe the tide is turning:

America is in a hole. The last response of the blowhards and cowards who have put it there is always: “So what would you do: set them free?” Our answer remains, yes. There is clearly a risk that some of them would then commit some act of violence—in Yemen, elsewhere in the Middle East or even in America itself. That risk can be lessened by surveillance. But even if another outrage were to happen, the evil of “Gitmo” has recruited far more people to terrorism than a mere 166. Mr Obama should think about America’s founding principles, take out his pen and end this stain on its history.

I agree 100%.

This isn’t the first time people have pointed out that our politics are creating more terrorists than they’re killing—especially our drone strikes—but I don’t expect this sort of security trade-off analysis from the Economist.

Posted on May 9, 2013 at 5:16 AM • View Comments

Matthew Alexander on Torture

Alexander is a former Special Operations interrogator who worked in Iraq in 2006. His op-ed is worth reading:

I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. The large majority of suicide bombings in Iraq are still carried out by these foreigners. They are also involved in most of the attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. It’s no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me—unless you don’t count American soldiers as Americans.

Also, this interview from Harper’s:

In Iraq, we lived the “ticking time bomb” scenario every day. Numerous Al Qaeda members that we captured and interrogated were directly involved in coordinating suicide bombing attacks. I remember one distinct case of a Sunni imam who was caught just after having blessed suicide bombers to go on a mission. Had we gotten there just an hour earlier, we could have saved lives. Still, we knew that if we resorted to torture the short term gains would be outweighed by the long term losses. I listened time and time again to foreign fighters, and Sunni Iraqis, state that the number one reason they had decided to pick up arms and join Al Qaeda was the abuses at Abu Ghraib and the authorized torture and abuse at Guantanamo Bay. My team of interrogators knew that we would become Al Qaeda’s best recruiters if we resorted to torture. Torture is counterproductive to keeping America safe and it doesn’t matter if we do it or if we pass it off to another government. The result is the same. And morally, I believe, there is an even stronger argument. Torture is simply incompatible with American principles. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln both forbade their troops from torturing prisoners of war. They realized, as the recent bipartisan Senate report echoes, that this is about who we are. We cannot become our enemy in trying to defeat him.

EDITED TO ADD (1/13): Yet another interview.

Posted on December 30, 2008 at 6:37 AM • View Comments

Gitmo Manual Leaked

A 2003 “Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedures” manual has been leaked to the Internet. This is the same manual that the ACLU has unsuccessfully sued the government to get a copy of. Others can debate the legality of some of the procedures; I’m interested in comments about the security.

See, for example, this quote on page 27.3:

(b) Upon arrival will enter the gate by entering the number (1998) in the combination lock

(c) Proceed to the junction box with the number (7012-83) Breaker Box and open the boc. The number for the lock on the breaker box is (224).

Posted on November 20, 2007 at 6:49 AM • View Comments

Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.