{"id":238,"date":"2005-12-06T18:15:16","date_gmt":"2005-12-06T23:15:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=238"},"modified":"2005-12-08T18:30:30","modified_gmt":"2005-12-08T23:30:30","slug":"secret-prisons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=238","title":{"rendered":"Secret prisons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m having real trouble understanding the current flap over allegations that<br \/>\nthe CIA is running secret overseas prisons for terrorists and enemy combatants.<br \/>\nI would prefer not to believe this is just another outbreak of reflexive<br \/>\nanti-Americanism, but I don&#8217;t see any principled case against what is<br \/>\nbeing alleged.  Can anyone explain it to me?<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Now, mind you, if there were any reason at all to believe American<br \/>\ncitizens were being shipped off to these hypothetical gulags I would<br \/>\nbe screaming bloody murder.  I believe even American citizens taken<br \/>\nunder arms as enemy combatants are entitled to the protections<br \/>\nguaranteed by the Constitution.  Violating the rights of non-combatant<br \/>\nAmericans in this way would be even worse &mdash; grounds for<br \/>\nimpeachment of every official in the chain of command, up to and<br \/>\nincluding the President.<\/p>\n<p>But the U.S. government has no constitutional, legal, or moral<br \/>\nobligation to treat foreign terrorists or foreign enemy combatants as<br \/>\nthough they were American citizens.  The laws of the host country<br \/>\nmight apply, but even that much is not clear if the locations are on<br \/>\nU.S. military bases (often, by treaty or agreement, these are<br \/>\nadministered under U.S. military law).<\/p>\n<p>I do think we have a moral obligation to treat such prisoners<br \/>\nhumanely.  But the outrage being ginned up isn&#8217;t over any alleged<br \/>\ninhumanity, it&#8217;s against the U.S. having such facilities at all.  And<br \/>\nI don&#8217;t get that.  Back during the Cold War, not even the Left bleated<br \/>\nover Communist-bloc agents being immured in similar conditions; what<br \/>\nmakes jihadi and Baathist terrorists any more deserving of anyone&#8217;s<br \/>\ntender-mindedness?<\/p>\n<p>To be clear, I recognize the obvious political and moral dangers of<br \/>\nhaving such a system; they have to be traded off against the lives<br \/>\nthat are saved by the intelligence it collects and by keeping hardened<br \/>\nterrists out of play.  But it seems to me that&#8217;s a debate that should<br \/>\nbe confined to American domestic politics, and conducted with<br \/>\ncircumspection even there lest it provide political cover for our<br \/>\nenemies.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, we have European politicians mouthing off about denying<br \/>\nthe U.S. overflight rights and demanding more public disclosure.  That<br \/>\nis out of line; whether those prisons exist and what goes on there is<br \/>\nto be decided by (a) Americans, (b) the host countries, and (c)<br \/>\n<em>nobody else<\/em>.  This is an elementary application of the same<br \/>\nrules of sovereignity that Europeans treat with such fastidious<br \/>\ntenderness when an anti-American dictator is the beneficiary.<\/p>\n<p>As I said, I&#8217;d like to believe this flap isn&#8217;t just the routine<br \/>\nand unjustified U.S.-bashing I&#8217;ve come to expect.  But I&#8217;m not<br \/>\noptimistic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m having real trouble understanding the current flap over allegations that the CIA is running secret overseas prisons for terrorists and enemy combatants. I would prefer not to believe this is just another outbreak of reflexive anti-Americanism, but I don&#8217;t see any principled case against what is being alleged. Can anyone explain it to me?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-terror","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}