Isabel Hilton (Guardian Utd): Maybe none of them are terrorists

[Jack Rabbit]

From the Guardian Unlimited (UK)
Dated Wednesday March 31

Maybe none of them are terrorists
Even the US military's own lawyers realise Guantánamo is an own goal
By Isabel Hilton

Consider this theoretical possibility: if no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, is it also possible that there are no al-Qaida terrorists in Guantánamo? It seems far fetched, put so bluntly. If only by chance, it would seem likely that some of the detainees might be terrorists. The US secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, argues that the inhumane incarceration, the secrecy and the abuse of any principles of justice are all justified by the fact that these prisoners are the hardest of hard cases. But given what we know of those who have been released, the refusal of the US to open the evidence to challenge, and the secrecy that surrounds the prison and all who languish there, the proposition is worth considering. And since none of us have been allowed to know much, it is worth listening to those who know a little more.
Lt Commander Charles Smith of the US navy is one of the five serving officers assigned to the defence of Guantánamo prisoners who attended a meeting in Oxford last weekend to discuss the realities rather than the myths of Guantánamo. Smith has visited Guantánamo Bay several times and has come closer than most non-inmates to what happens there.
When the military defenders were first assigned, they seemed like another implausible piece of the rigged and unfair process. The defenders, after all, are subject to military discipline and signed up to the military worldview. Their ultimate boss is the same Donald Rumsfeld who has already announced that even should a prisoner be found not guilty, he would not necessarily release him.
The military defenders may never get their day in court with their clients, but they have already done invaluable service by denouncing Rumsfeld's system as impossibly unfair and challenging it in the US supreme court. But their concerns go deeper.

Read more.

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1. Non-soccer fans: An own goal is a goal you score against your team

An own goal is a bad thing. In the World Cup here in the US a few years ago, a Columbian player scored an own goal against his team in the USA game. When he went back to Columbia after the World Cup, he was shot for it. Many times.