This, if accurate, is un-American and must be stopped. I was not aware that the U.S. held prisoners at Bagram who were captured outside Afghanistan. That is wrong.
While I think the decision to keep the torture photos under wraps is a mistake, I am not so sure of my position as to become upset about it. No laws are being violated, and the administration's propaganda rationale is quite valid. In addition, I also think that it would be a bad idea to extend habeus corpus to prisoners taken in Afghanistan as long as there is an active rebellion under way. Denying those rights during a rebellion does not violate American law nor American tradition nor a decent respect of the opinions of mankind. Finally, I have no problem with American forces swooping down and arresting somebody outside the United States, even in violation of the jurisdiction in which the swooping occurs. After all, even now, two decades later, and despite all the gray, it still seems to me that Bush the Elder's decision to invade Panama and arrest Manuel Noriega was the right thing to do.
But I have a serious problem when the swoopee is not transferred to an American federal court but rather transported to an extraterritorial outpost and held with no judicial protections whatsoever.
I understand why the President wants to punt on the Bagram issue. I am supremely cynical, and unlike many of his early supporters I found the man an attractive candidate early on because I beleived that he was even more supremely cynical in the sort impersonal way that makes for successful presidencies. But cynicism has its limits. He does not have my support on the fate of the Bagram detainees captured outside the Af-Pak theater, and they should be tried in American courts or released.
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