RUMSFELD'S CON GAME


By Charles Gittings

At a Pentagon press conference (23 Jan 2002), US Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld made the following remarks:

"And let there be no doubt, the treatment of the detainees in Guantanamo Bay is
proper, it's humane, it's appropriate, and it is fully consistent with
international conventions. No detainee has been harmed, no detainee has been
mistreated in any way. And the numerous articles, statements, questions,
allegations, and breathless reports on television are undoubtedly by people who
are either uninformed, misinformed or poorly informed."

"The detention center in Guantanamo Bay has gone from non-existent to a
temporary facility. The current facilities are just that, they're temporary.
They didn't exist a few weeks ago. They will be replaced in the months ahead
with a more permanent facility, as it becomes possible to determine the size and
the scope of the problem."

Both the White House and the US State Department endorsed these remarks in press
briefings.  I won't speculate as to whether Mr. Rumsfeld is lying, misinformed,
or just ignorant. The fact remains what he said was false on several important
points.


I wouldn't claim that the prisoners have been tortured, but it's clear they've
been needlessly mistreated. For example:

1) Blindfolding them for the entire flight to Cuba was unnecessary and abusive.
Each man was shackled to his seat and guarded by at least two MPs at all times.
The chance of them getting loose was exactly zero. US MPs routinely transport
and imprison US military personnel far more dangerous than any of these
prisoners, and if its standard procedure to blindfold a military prisoner in
transit, surely they'd have said so.

2) The housing being provided is clearly inadequate under both the Geneva
Convention and US standards for convicts, while the US has any number of
maximum-security facilities available that would suffice.

3) The prisoners are floodlighted during the night, which is unnecessary and
abusive.  The US military has the best night vision equipment anywhere and US
forces are trained to operate in conditions of total darkness.  For dangerous
missions, conditions of total darkness are actually preferred because of the
huge tactical advantage US troops have in a night action.

Now I don't claim these are especially grave violations (the housing is the most
serious), but they clearly are violations; and however minor, they are simply
unnecessary.

But such humanitarian concerns are not the only problems, nor the worst.

1) The administration has wrongly designated these prisoners as "illegal
belligerents". There is no such designation in the Geneva Convention, and at
least some of the prisoners appear to meet the criteria for POW status. By the
terms of the convention, only a competent tribunal can rule that they are not
POWs in case of doubt, and pending such a determination the prisoners should be
treated as POWs.

2) The US government has removed them to Cuba for the obvious purpose of
circumventing both US and international law.

3) There isn't just one Geneva Convention, there are four: one deals with POWs,
one deals with civilians, and two apply to wounded and sick. All prisoners are
either POWs or they civilians accused of crimes.  There is no third class of
persons excluded from both of the relevant conventions. The prisoners either
have the rights of POWs or they have the rights of civilians; and either way,
these prisoners are being denied their lawful rights by the US government.

4) Both the applicable conventions specifically exclude collective punishment
for individual acts or guilt by association. The conventions make it clear that
individuals who are considered a threat to security may be held incommunicado,
but it also makes clear that they are nevertheless entitled to due process of
law and humane treatment.  There are also other international agreements and US
statutes that apply which are being ignored: the US government is clearly acting
illegally.

The worst thing about all this isn't so much the abuse, which is relatively
minor; it's that the US government is acting with obvious contempt for the law
and lying about it.  Worse, it's unnecessary, contemptible, and just plain dumb.

The Bush administration is making themselves look like hypocrites, apparently
because they really are; they're poisoning our relations with the rest of the
world; they are wasting everyone's time and energy on a needless controversy
where they're clearly in the wrong; and they're even setting themselves up for
an open and shut indictment as war criminals.

Dumb is putting it kindly: stoned out of their minds from sniffing the glue of
public opinion polls might be more accurate. Or maybe it's that they're in so
far over their heads they're in a panic to look tough and show results. Maybe
it's all of the above. This much is clear: it's a lame act.

Rumsfeld claims anyone who criticizes the conduct of the US in this matter is
"either uninformed, misinformed or poorly informed", yet whenever he was asked a
specific question regarding the laws that apply here, he made it clear he
regards all those issues as matters for government lawyers to decide, and that
he personally has little time or interest for such things.  Yet it's obvious
that the public only knows what the government has made known, and what we do
know makes it clear that the government is violating the Geneva Convention.

Clearly, it is Mr. Rumsfeld himself who is "either uninformed, misinformed or
poorly informed", and it's equally clear that his statements can only be the
result of incompetence or a deliberate conspiracy to mislead public opinion.


Oakland, California
26 January 2002