REPUBLICANS URGE CRIMINAL ACT

Guatanimo Bay is the sight of a U.S. Military installation located on land leased from Cuba.  There is nothing unusual or unique about any of that. What is unique is that it is the sight of a military prison, which calls attention to the place in an ugly way. Enemy combatants are held there indefinitely with out trial, which is why there is a low level of or undercurrent of criticism about Gitmo in the American and the world. However, when Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, Osama bin Laden's son-in-law and a senior al-queada leader, appeared in the federal courthouse in Manhattan, Gitmo, as this particular military base reappeared in the news Republicans went bonkers. The uproar went way beyond the significance of the event. Sure, this guy is a terrorist, a criminal, with an association to a notorious name who was captured and not killed by a drone strike, which takes the story out of the “dog bites” man category even though the public controversy over drone strikes rages. Still, we have to ask why the Republican outrage is so manifest. Why do they “demand” this criminal be taken to Gitmo and put under the jurisdiction of a Military court?

The answer is secret. They want this very badly but cannot publically say why they want it to happen. The answer is simple. They want our military, the same military we share their pride in, to commit not only an illegal act but also an immoral act; they want the military to torture him. The CIA and FBI have 22 plus pages of information already obtained from him. Our judicial system has proved that torture does not work. Our courts will, as they should, throw out any statements made by him under torture and make it impossible to prosecute him in any civilian courts but shamefully not in military courts. If you ask why this small group, who identify themselves as tough guys, would want to torture him when they know it will yield false information that cannot be separated from true information, and that the torturing will render him immune from “true justice” begs the  question, “Why does this small group of Republicans insist on taking the route?”

The answer; they want to hurt him; punish him without trial. Torture is like a powerful gun in their hands: they apparently feel that torture is a tool that makes them feel manly; it gives them self-esteem. However, they are just as wrong as Dick Cheney and George W. Bush were wrong; it makes them complicit in a crime against humanity as bad as the crime committed by Sulaiman Abu Ghaith.

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