Tariq Aziz is in the headlines:
He was the urbane, English-speaking deputy to Saddam Hussein, the bespectacled face of the former Iraqi dictator’s regime, at home on the international stage.
Yet nothing had been heard or seen from Tariq Aziz since he surrendered to US forces on 24 April, 2003, as Iraq crumbled around him…
Writing in Arabic, Aziz says: ‘We are totally isolated from the world. There are 13 other detainees here, but we have no meetings or telephone contacts wth our families. I have been accused unjustly, but to date no proper investigation has taken place. It is imperative that there is intervention into our dire situation and treatment. It is totally in contradiction to international law, the Geneva Convention and Iraqi law as we know it.’
In a letter dated 7 March and written in English, Aziz states: ‘We hope that you will help us. We have been in prison for a long time and we have been cut from our families. No contacts, no phones, no letters. Even the parcels sent to us by our families are not given to us. We need a fair treatment, a fair investigation and finally a fair trial. Please help us.’
In another letter, written in Arabic and English, he says: ‘I haven’t been accused of anything,’ and ‘I have not done anything contrary to law and human behaviour.’
And the mess continues. I really don’t care if Tariq Aziz is given to the New Iraqi government and shot in public, despite my general opposition to the death penalty.
However, at some point, serious people inside our government are going to have to recognize what a muddled mess our indefinite detainment of ‘enemy combatants’ has become. Put aside the fact that it flies in the face of the fundamental sense of decency that most Amereicans have regarding the rights of accused as embodied in the US Constitution. I recognize that the determination has been made that they do not deserve those same Constitutional rigfts.
However, at some point, they deserve a right to a fair, open, and transparent hearing, the right to be charged and face their accusers publicly, and we risk continued domestic and world support of the more important war on terror if we continue to detain individuals in much the same manner that Roberto Mugabe would detain his political opposition. And before you scream at me for comparing the United States with a despicable murderous strongman, I am not. I am comparing our willingness to lock people up and seemingly forget about them, without affording them any sense of the rights of due process.
Tariq Aziz and those like him may have committed crimes for which they can never atone, crimes for which they can never adequately be punished, and it is exceptionally difficult to lose any sleep over them. However, I think it would be wise to judge the impact of this policy of permanent detainment without legal protection, particularly in light of the eroding sense of confidence in the world that the United States is on the right side of the issue.
This does not mean capitulating to the will of our enemies, and allowing them to use the systems in place in a liberal democracy as a weapon against us. It does mean that we have to recognize that our actions, however justified in the short term, are going to have long-term consequences that may damage our over-all goals- eradicating terrorism and creating a stable, peaceful, prosperous, and democratic Middle East.
*** Update ***
More here.
Russell
I agree that there is little value in losing sleep over the fates of folks like Aziz.
I do, however, lose sleep over the kind of nation *we* are becoming.
Cheers –
Stormy70
Sorry, I disagree. These guys will be turned over to the Iraqi government, and I don’t think they deserve legal representation by us in the meantime. They are lucky we haven’t turned them over to the Kurds. Plus, I do not care that these mass murderers can’t see their family while awaiting their eventual trial by the Iraqi government. I think this guy is a liar, and I don’t believe his claims.
Stormy70
Oh, and I don’t care anymore what any hypocritical, anti-American countries think about America. Throughout history anti-Americanism has been there, and it will never go away. The UN, Amnesty International, and the rest of the Leftist organizations can kiss my ass. They are lucky I’m not in charge, since I would have pulled out of the UN, and stopped all international aid to any country that was anti-democratic. Plus, all these detainees would be handed over to the people they oppressed to be strung up in the streets. I am a philistine, so don’t bother trying to convince me why I should care what anti-semitic, anti-American people say about the US.
Libertine
2 words seem to jump to mind here…
Habeus Corpus
Darrell
You can’t be serious. The case of Tariq Aziz, a man complicit in the deaths of thousands upon thousands of innocents.. the detention of that scumbag is the one you choose to point out in order to cause us to “reflect” on the policy of holding enemy combatents? And then despite your denial, you actually compared us with Mugabe, or at least our methods with his..Why not go all the way and compare us with Hitler? Mugabe routinely rounds up innocent political opponents in his own country, he has summarily executeds thousands, imprisoned thousands of others, and that’s who you choose to compare us with.
You wrote that the terrorists we have captured on the battlefield “deserve a right to a fair, open, and transparent hearing, the right to be charged and face their accusers publicly”. Then all POW’s captured in war should be entitled these rights? Because that’s exactly what these enemy combatents are.. they are POW’s, but unlike more honorable POW’s, these cannot even be labeled as “POW” because they not only are not a signatory to the Geneva convention, they violated the Geneva convention on multiple counts: fighting out of uniform, hiding among civilians resulting in more civilian deaths, waving white flags of surrender then firing on our troops. I see no moral or legal justification for your claim that these vermin are entitled to ‘face their accuser’, etc.
Newsflash: Habeas corpus does not, and has never extended to the battlefield
shark
Actually, I like the fact that enemy scum like this are thrown into a hole and left to rot.
3,000 people died on 9/11
The gloves HAVE to be off.
John Cole
Darrell-
I don’t know why I am even bothering to engage a reactionary troll who distorts everything I say, but here goes anyway.
What part of this statement makes you think I am all soft on Tariq Aziz:
Not to mention, Tariq Aziz is not one of these rogue terrorists you would like to just throw in a dungeon somewhere and forget about- he is a legitmate combatant in a war we won, so it is time for the war crimes trial to start.
And before you argue that the war is over- the war with the current regime is long over. We are now fighting a broad insurgency with terrorist ties and popular local support.
As for the Mugabe comparison, I am not comparing us to him- I am comparing the practice of throwing people in jail indefinitely without ever planning to do anything with them but rot. Of course, with people as dumb as you wandering around, I should probably not made the statement and given you an opportunity to distort it.
When do we declare victory in the war on terror and repatriate these individuals?
How long do we keep them without at least explaining to the public and world at large why they are in detention?
And simpy stating they are the enemy may make make you feel all warm and fuzzy and may make you think we have done something and we are acting ‘tough,’ but how do we know? We know already that scores of innocent people were detained and sent to Gitmo and other prisons because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
IN previous wars, we knew who the enemy was aligned with, and thus, we could be safe and secure knowing that prisoners of war were in fact prisoners of war. They had uniforms, ranks, etc. Here, there is not the same clarity, so at some point we have to figure out who is who and what they have really done.
And, of course, you reactionary fool, the best way to do that would be to publicly charge them with something.
By the way- who is going to sign the armistice at the end of the War on Terror, so we can send all these POW’s home?
BadTux
The problem, as I see it, is that we have a choice of living in a democracy, or living in a dictatorship. Democracy is inherently hostile to locking people up without trial and charges.
The War on Terror as envisioned by the Bush Administration is doomed to failure because we are, for the moment, still a democracy. The only way to “win” the War on Terror as being conducted by the Bush Administration is the same as the only way to win yet another unending war, the War on Drugs: Destroy democracy and replace it with a dictatorship. The U.S. population is not going to support spending the 5%+ of U.S. GDP needed in order to pump the U.S. Army up from its current strength of 485,000 soldiers to the 1.5 million soldiers needed to keep 500,000 soldiers permenantly deployed in the Middle East, which is the minimum needed to maintain order in Iraq (look, Saddam had over 250,000 policemen in Baghdad alone in order to keep the streets safe, and that’s not counting his secret police or Republican Guard!). And forget about the draft needed to recruit that extra 1,000,000 soldiers. Any Congressman who voted for a draft would be out of a job at the next election, replaced by an anti-draft Congressman. The only way to get the manpower needed to win the War on Terror as currently comrprised is to eliminate democracy in America. Are we willing to pay that price? If so, may God have mercy upon our souls.
– Badtux the Democracy-loving Penguin
AWJ
BadTux-
Shortly before the election, when President Bush’s poll ratings were at their lowest ebb, a few posters on Free Republic were talking about how the government should “postpone” the election, or even declare Senator Kerry an enemy combatant.
Granted, these posters were distinctly in the minority. But apparently they weren’t out-of-line enough to get banned and their posts deleted, as the moderator of that site usually does with gusto to posters batshit-crazy enough to be deemed “trolls” (I’ve heard that Adam Yoshida managed to get himself banned, f’rinstance.)
ppgaz
It is never about the bad guys, really. It is always about us, who we are and how we see ourselves. If we take care of those things, then we don’t need to worry much about what other people think of us.
I believe in the Golden Rule. And in my reading of the Rule, I don’t find that it is an obligation of others to earn its protections, or to prove that they are worthy of it.
Tariq Aziz was once courted by this country, was he not? Was the regime he represented, then, any worse than it was when we declared it to be evil? I think not.
“Kiss my ass” is a great attitude …. in a barfight. Detention of a prisoner is not a barfight.
—/stolen from the Internet:
The L.A. Times, on Feb 23, 1992, dug deep enough to find secret National Security Decision Directives by the Bush Administration in 1989 ordering closer ties with Baghdad and paving the way for $1 billion in new aid. The Times’ series, co-authored with Waas, emphasized that, “buried deep in a 1991 Washington Press piece – that Secretary of State James Baker, after meeting with Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz in October 1989, intervened personally to support U.S. government loans guarantees to Iraq.”
Baker’s CJR report also noted, “On October 3, the Wall Street Journal reported BNL official Christopher Drogoul’s assertion that the director general of Iraq’s Ministry of Industry and Military Production had told him,
jazzman
Some people say we’ve given up too many of our rights in the fight against terrorism. I don’t believe that is true.
However, I do think we are moving too far away from the idea of liberty.
During WW2, we were able to crush the Nazis while treating their prisoners humanely. It has been our tradition as a nation to treat prisoners of war better than they deserve to be treated. It’s one of the thing that sets us apart from lesser nations.
The same should hold true with the Iraqi bastards.
SoCal Lawyer
Darrell,
Isn’t there a world of difference between a member of the Taliban captured in the battlefield in Afghanistan (and properly held at Gitmo without a lawyer) and a former member of Saddam’s government who surrendered to U.S. forces? How would giving the guy contact with his family and lawyer in any way jeopardize his coming prosecution for war crimes?
Darrell
Mr. Cole, do I believe that most of the idiots who carry ‘Bush=Hitler’ posters really deep down believe that Bush is as murderous and tyrannical as Hitler? No. Which makes the comparison to Hitler so shitty and over-the-top. Same with your comparison of Mugabe to the US, which I explicitly acknowledged was directed toward our methods you object to. A shitty, over-the-top comparison. I’m guilty of those myself from time to time. But I did not “distort” one bit what you wrote and anyone can read your post and my comments to see for themselves. No Mr. Cole, as with the Bush=Hitler crowd, I don’t think you really believe US actions are equivalent to Mugabe’s, but I think your comparison was offensive.
And speaking of distorting comments, where did I say or imply you were “soft” on Aziz? Oh that’s right, I never did. You just made it up as a strawman. What I did say, and my words are there for all to read (unless you decide to delete my post), is that Aziz was a helluva example to pick out in order to introduce you main point, which is that these enemy combatents “deserve” to face their accusers, have hearings and other rights never given to POW’s.
If calling me names (“reactionary troll”, “as dumb as you”, “reactionary fool”) makes you feel big, then whatever floats your boat man. But by any honest reading, I have made several valid points while behaving in a reasonbly respectful manner. I’ll tell you what..If you really think that my comments are so over the top as to qualify me as a ‘reactionary troll’, then say you don’t want me to post any more and I’ll save you the trouble of banning my IP. But if that’s the case, please spare any pretend game bullshit that you’re doing it because I’m behaving so outrageously
Regarding your comment that “scores” of innocents were detained in Gitmo, I’ve heard a lot of leftists say this, but I have yet to see substantive evidence that this is/was the case. How many? And how long were they held before release? And of those released, how do we know they are really innocent?. as a number of those released have been captured again or killed on the battlefield trying attack our soldiers or innocent civilians. Seriously, I would like to see some solid information on these scores of innocents who happened to be in the ‘wrong place at the wrong time’.. or were you simply repeating a charge that you heard someone else say? Given the number of terrorists who have been captured or killed on the battlefield after release from detention, that would lead one to believe, if anything, that the US is being too lax with detainees, no?
You raise a good point with your armistice remark about how long to keep them (for which I don’t have a good answer), but I don’t think you’ve come close to making the case that we have a moral or legal obligation to give these terrorists far more rights than would be given to prisoners of war.
Darrell
jazzman, during WWII Germany was a signatory to the Geneva convention. And despite everything else Hitler was guilty of, he was not guilty of ordering POW abuses (to a significant degree) of allied troops. Why? Because he didn’t want allied forces to abuse and kill German POW’s. That was the point of the Geneva Convention. Incentives for both sides to treat POW’s in a human manner, among other mutually agreed upon restrictions.
Al Queda and Baathist terrorists, on the other hand, have no hesitation about torture, rape, and murder of their prisoners, or civilians for that matter. They have signed the Geneva convention and they damn sure haven’t abided by it, so they are not eligible for any of it’s protections
John Cole
Darrell- Your offense is duly noted, and you did distort my MUgabe remark, whether or not you will admit it.
Now, will you answer any of those questions? Exactly why should we not charge Aziz and let him get legal representation? The war is over.
And, for the record, I did not ‘choose’ Aziz as a case- it was in the newspaper, so I commented on it.
As to the rest, if you are not a reactionary fool, you are certain engaging in Reactionary foolishness by suggesting that we simply lock people up and throw away the key because they are the ‘enemy.’
That they are even the ‘enemy’ has not been established- many are being held simply because they were rounded up by Afghan warlords.
I carry no torch for terrorists- it is one of the few cases where i can overlook my opposition to the death penalty. But I do require that my government have policies that make sense, and I am not sure that simply detaining people forever because we feel like it makes any sense. Something has to be done at some point in time. At some point we are going to have to charge these people with something, send them home, or… something. Unless, of course, we just quit playing games and execute them all without a trial, legal representation, or even a charge.
You have, after all, established their guilt. Why bother with the rest of the pleasantries?
Nancy Grace/CNN
I think we’re saving that til the midterm elections or 2008.
ppgaz
“Regarding your comment that “scores” of innocents were detained in Gitmo, I’ve heard a lot of leftists say this”
Only “leftists” would raise questions, challenge the authority of this corrupt and inept government … right, Darrell?
I think “Americans” have done these things, and your lack of respect for them will get you what you deserve. No respect.
Darrell
I never said that Aziz and other top govt officials should not have a trial.. but seems to me in those limited cases, that shoudld be the decision of the Iraqi govt, not the US.
The central focus of your post was that rights should be granted these enemy combatents which would never be granted to prisoners of war. In war, don’t we always ‘throw away the key’ when it comes to POW’s until the war ended? And weren’t a number of innocent Vietnamese ‘collaborators’ unjustly imprisoned? For that matter, aren’t a lot of innocent people unjustly detained and killed in every war? Does this mean we should give the terrorists more rights than are given POW’s (lawyers, right to face accusers, etc) in wartime? I fail to see how my view in any way qualifies as reactionary foolishness
You have a good point, asking ‘for how long will we keep them’ while acknowledging that there is not a lot of clarity as to the status of enemy combatents. Tell me again, why should we be giving these guys more rights that were given POW’s? I mean, aren’t they basically POW’s, but ones who fight without honor?
Darrell
ppgaz, those who exagerrate and lie about the number of innocents detained at Gitmo in an effort to undermine our war efforts, are not honorable. Such behavior would qualify as ‘unpatriotic’ in most peoples’ book, wouldn’t you agree?
John Cole
The central focus of your post was that rights should be granted these enemy combatents which would never be granted to prisoners of war. In war, don’t we always ‘throw away the key’ when it comes to POW’s until the war ended? And weren’t a number of innocent Vietnamese ‘collaborators’ unjustly imprisoned? For that matter, aren’t a lot of innocent people unjustly detained and killed in every war? Does this mean we should give the terrorists more rights than are given POW’s (lawyers, right to face accusers, etc) in wartime? I fail to see how my view in any way qualifies as reactionary foolishness.
The central point of my post was that at some point we are going to have to do something with them, and that right now, simply leaving them in the pokey without an explanation, talks of a future plan, or any reasonable policy is a non-starter.
That does not mean I think every detainee shuld be afforded the same rights as a criminal defendant in the United States, but the war on terror is not going to end, and it is an untenable suggestion that we simply let them rot in Gitmo indefinitely because you have decided they are bad people.
Detaining people indefinitely without proof of threat or without proving guilt and without any future plan as to what to do with them, without any doubt, is reactionary foolishness. I argued that initially we should hold these people and not treat them like we would normal EPW’s. But that was 2-3 years ago, and we need to get our act together.
John Cole
And, unless I am wrong, we are signatories to the Geneva Convention. Tariq Aziz, as a member of the government we were at war with, should be afforded protection. Since there no longer is a government to sign a peace treaty with or declare the war over, I don’t understand why he has not been charged or given legal council.
ppgaz
If I were you, Darrell, I wouldn’t be lecturing anyone on the subject of lying and exaggerating.
I also don’t hold you to be any authority on what is patriotic, and what is not. I do not consider you patriotic just because you repeat the Bush administration’s talking points every day. I think you’re a damned fool.
Darrell
As for leaving them in the pokey without explanation, isn’t this exactly what happens in every war? Has there ever been a war which any POW is given such rights as you propose? It’s a good bet that most of these detainees are dangerous hombres who would like nothing better than to kill more infidels if released.
And these enemy combatents are in Gitmo not because “I” have decided they are a threat, they are there because the military who captured them decided that they are the threat.. same decision process as happens in every war. Are we now to second guess with open trials, every decision made on the battlefield? I’m not trying to bait you with that question, I just want you to see what I believe would be the logical outcome of your proposals, courtroom trials over a multitude of decisions made in battle.
I would ask that you acknowledge we hold prisoners in every war without courtroom “proof”. I don’t see any positive outcome to the new rights you suggest giving these prisoners. And I certainly don’t see that the military has any incentive to detain those whom they believe to be innocent
Darrell
JohnC regarding your comments on the Geneva convention, I admire your tenacity in pursuing technical details in order to bestow rights on mass murderers like Aziz.
Tell us, which Geneva convention protections is Aziz not being afforded?
And I don’t understand your comment that there is “no longer a government” in Iraq.
John Cole
JohnC regarding your comments on the Geneva convention, I admire your tenacity in pursuing technical details in order to bestow rights on mass murderers like Aziz.
Perhaps you could show me where in the Geneva Conventions it is ok to detain EPW’s long past the conclusion of a war.
As for leaving them in the pokey without explanation, isn’t this exactly what happens in every war?
The war on terror is a war in name only. Until you begin to recognize that this is not a war that fits the mold of all previous wars, it is pointless to move on.
And I resent you treating this like some sort of dick-measuring contest. I am not advocating going soft, or trying to create rights for mass murderers, or anything of the sort. But since you have determined Aziz was a mass murderer, how about some specific charges and legal council? Is that crazy?
I am only trying to make some sense of this mess, to try to determine what exactly the long term process will be- something that is much needed to replace the rambling incoherence of your tough guy approach, which, so far, can be summed up as:
“This is war- anything goes.”
Sisyphus
It seems to me that Aziz, rather than play the victim card, would be better off calling for an end to the insurgency and support for the new government so that he can be tried.
Of course, not denouncing the violence against fellow Iraqis while pleading he is being unjustly treated makes better propaganda.
ppgaz
Sorry, Stormy, but I have to go back and address something you said early in the thread.
You’d stop “aid” to any country that was “anti-democratic?”
Most of the Cold War period, which is to say, my lifetime, has been full of both Western and American consorting with despots, dictators, lying theiving assholes, criminals and murderers … whose friendship it was convenient, or expedient, to curry , sometimes in the most disgusting ways.
My favorite example, of course, is the large album of pictures of the Shah of Iran and his gorgeous entourage dining in the East Room and smoking cigars with presidents. The Shah, of course, was Saddam Hussein in better clothes and with more refined (Anglified?) manners. One of the great shitheads of all time.
But not unlike the Saudi Royal family, who bankrolled GW Bush’s ill-fated oil adventures in Texas, and otherwise rubbed noses with the Bush family over the years, and right up to the current time.
Also not unlike Saddam Hussein himself. See my earlier post.
Aid money has often been used to buy favors, bribe the balky, and otherwise get favors from all manner of not just anti-democratic, but completely despotic and sociopathic governments from whom we needed something.
Aid has never been about “advancing democracy”. Anyone who thinks it is has been duped. Anyone who thinks that the last 58 years of US foreign policy has not relied on it heavily for its own purposes is out of touch with reality.
Darrell
needed to replace the rambling incoherence of your tough guy approach, which, so far, can be summed up as: “This is war- anything goes.”
If it makes you feel better to distort my position using cartoonish stereotypes, go right ahead. No dick-measuring contest as you say, just trying to sort out the truth. And IMO, your comment on the Geneva convention looks like a search for technicalities in order to grant Aziz more rights and protections.
You raise a good pt on detaining EPW’s after a war’s conclusion, as we both know that Al Queda, Hamas, and the rest of the terrorist scum won’t be signing any peace treaties
Do you deny that the logical outcome of your proposals giving courtroom-like defendent rights to military prisoners, would result in courtroom style second guessing of a multitude of battlefield decisions and actions? You don’t seem to want to address this issue
You haven’t begun to make the case to justify such sweeping changes in rights given to EPW’s.. but that’s just my opinion
John Cole
If it makes you feel better to distort my position using cartoonish stereotypes, go right ahead. No dick-measuring contest as you say, just trying to sort out the truth. And IMO, your comment on the Geneva convention looks like a search for technicalities in order to grant Aziz more rights and protections.
Under what authority are we now holding him?
At any rate, I recognize the difficulties posed by courtroom trials- that is precisely the reason I originally went along with this, and to some extent still do.
But- that doesn;t mean it can go like this indefinitely. And, quite frankly, your solution is to just keep things the way they are and to berate anyone as creating rights or not recognizing we are at war.
Meanwhile, the world watches…
Sisyphus
Tribunal’s task grows ever more daunting
Now under new leadership, the Iraqi Special Tribunal is moving ahead through a minefield of obstacles. The UN is resolutely on the sidelines, withholding approval. Human Rights Watch has expressed alarm at the lack of procedural safeguards. A prominent judge was assassinated three months ago. And the more the government struggles to get its footing, the more likely that Hussein could stir up trouble with an aggressive defense.
The still-ongoing Milosevic trial is probably a cautionary flag. Dictators tend to be charismatic figures, and Milosevic has used his trial in The Hague to revive support for his nationalist allies back in Serbia. Hussein will almost certainly try to do the same for his Ba’athist allies, and the five-judge panel that will oversee his trial must strive to keep it focused tightly on the evidence.
p.lukasiak
The case of Tariq Aziz, a man complicit in the deaths of thousands upon thousands of innocents..
precisely what is the evidence against Tariq Aziz?
Andrew J. Lazarus
Perhaps Darrell can explain to us why the Nurenberg defendants had both local German and foreign counsel? Are you prepared to argue that Tariq Aziz is more heinous than Josef Goebbels?
Aaron
Educate yourself about the Geneva conventions. We are holding Iraqis as POWs not detainees.
Also, Rudolf Hess was an urbane, educated man…why didn’t the Europeans release him a couple of years after his capture?
And, yes, John, once you agree to have “hearings,” there will be a cry for “full rights.” I hope you have been following Milosevic’s trial.
Finally, regarding Gitmo, we are creatingf a moral hazard if we release or try those prisoners. Because if they end up with more rights than a POW the next enemy will learn the lesson and toss the uniforms as well. The penalty for not wearing uniforms and following the Law of Armed Conflict is to lose your rights. Sorry.
Andrew J. Lazarus
I’m willing to consider the possiblity of continued Gitmo detention for detainees who really were terrorists operating out of uniform. (Although a uniform is not a prerequisite under the GC for the residents of the invaded territory, which would let many of the Afghans off the hook). What I’m not willing to do is determine that all of these detainees are unlawful combatants as described without giving them any chance to defend themselves. It is both improper under the GC and also against any norms of justice to suggest that the President and a bunch of bloggers can make such determinations wholesale.
The comparison to Rudolf Hess is an outrage: Hess had lawyers and Hess had a (famous) trial. It can’t be that you don’t see the difference; it must be that you don’t care.
Libertine
Newsflash: Habeas corpus does not, and has never extended to the battlefield
Newsflash: According to Bush the war is over. Charge the man, try him or let him go.
You have been beaten up pretty good on this thread Darrell…I’ll just pile on somemore. To address your question…what crimes did Aziz commit in the US-Iraq war that has meant he be held as a prisoner of war or enemy combatant? He is a diplomat…a lying and dishonest one but still only a diplomat from what I see.
Bring the charges and try him if we have proof of war crimes.
ppgaz
Aziz is nothing more than a political trophy. He represents no particular security risk, or intelligence opportunity. As for “crimes” — I suppose that anyone who served the Hussein government in any capacity can be accused of being “complicit” in the naughtiness of the regime. For that matter, so can the US Government, since we treated Hussein as our own private naughty boy in the region until it became a threat to our relationships with other countries in the region. Can you say Saudi Royal family?
I have long had a suspicion that our best interests in the region might have been served by keeping Hussein on our side for as long as possible. That was the policy until the Kuwait invasion. It made sense, in the way that our alliances with many despots have made sense over the years, and I think Hussein will be shown by history to have been a particularly good despot to hook up with. He was relatively stable, in that he was focussed on simple and attainable goals, centered around theft of his country’s wealth. Before you cluck you tongue, ask yourself what the beloved (hold his hand again, George) Saudi Royals are really all about if not the pillaging of their country’s oil wealth?
Alas, when Hussein went into Kuwait and the Arab Hotline phone began to ring off the hook in George Bush the Elder’s office, and when Hussein did not have the good sense to realize that his smart move would have been to say “I’m sorry, this was the mother of all bad decisions on my part”, our government had no choice but to gin up the original Gulf War and drive him out of Kuwait. You know, to liberate Kuwait, remember? Liberate it, in the sense that its corrupt and nasty government could once again keep its grip on power and its own claim to oil money.
When the history of our stumbling and bumbling foolishness in the Middle East is written, I doubt that Tariq Aziz is going to get a long of ink. He is a very minor player.
But for now, he is a nice little trophy. And he can be kept quiet about the history of the last 20 years over there by the simple expedient of doing what we are doing now. After all, you wouldn’t want an articulate and educated man telling the kind of story I suggested here, to the Arab world, would you?
scs
I would assume that most of the detainee’s in Gitmo are Arab foreginers who went to fight for the Taliban, captured on the battlefield.
Any guy who leaves his comfortable life with regular meals and plumbing to travel and go live in the mountains to fight for the Taliban is pretty safely deemed by us to be an Islamic radical. That is precisely the kind of guy we don’t want to release, lest he then get another one way ticket to Iraq to set off more bombs against our troops. Insurgency always seems to develop into a career path for most guys. We at least want to keep these guys behind bars until Iraq is more stable.
So how do we do that? What do we charge them with? Not as prisoners of war. The war with the Taliban is over and most of them aren’t even Afghan anyway. Criminal charges? What crimes of what country did they violate by volunteering for a foreign war. Prisoners of war from the War on Terror? That would work to keep them incarcerated for a while but I don’t know if that would fly internationally. See the US is in a pickle over this one. There is no law invented to accomplish the goal we need to, but we need to do it anyway. We’ll just have to let the world hate us.
scs
Sorry, I veered off the subject of Tariq Aziz. Unlike foreign combatants, we could prosecute him as a criminal of war. I have no knowledge of Aziz’s personal guilt or what actual evidence the US has on any crimes he actively participated in. However, he was a willing advisor and top level member of a government that committed many crimes against their own people. Do war crime charges have to be more specific that that? If so, they should be more like the gang and mafia laws we have, just being a mafia member is enough to convict you.
.
neil
Gee whiz, remember back in the old days when the U.S. government acknowledged that people have certain inalienable rights, and in exchange for defending those rights we gave them a monopoly on the use of force?
They sure picked a strange time to cancel that deal, didn’t they?
Aaron
Andrew,
There are not many Afghan detainees at Gitmo – and I believe they are covered by GC rights.
Rudolf Hess had a trial, but AFTER THE WAR and AFTER 4 YEARS of detention.
Let me know when the war is over.
Darrell
John Cole wrote: Under what authority are we now holding him?
Under the authority of the Iraqi government
Andrew J. Lazarus wrote: I’m willing to consider the possiblity of continued Gitmo detention for detainees who really were terrorists operating out of uniform. and then goes on to write this: What I’m not willing to do is determine that all of these detainees are unlawful combatants as described without giving them any chance to defend themselves.
Tell us Mr. Lazarus, how do you reconcile those two statements? How does one support the detention of terrorists without trial, while advocating that they be given the opportunity to ‘defend themselves’? How does one know which ones, in Lazarus’ words, “really were terrorists”. Isn’t that the crux of the problem here?
Look, I’m perfectly willing to admit that this is an unorthdox war with imperfect options. But I see no other way to go, short of giving these terrorist prisoners courtroom-like rights, an outcome which would result in much more harm that good. We are, as scs put it, in a ‘pickle’, but should not be intimidateds by ‘world opinion’ or others to release dangerous terrorists.
One last comment. I note a tendency here to downplay Tariq Aziz’s role in the Iraqi govt. Libertine argued that Aziz is merely a benign “diplomat”, ppgaz writes that Aziz offers no intelligence value. Are you people on crack? Tariq Aziz was the f*cking deputy prime minister right-hand man of Saddam. I could see you making that point if we were talking about some low level ass-kissing bureaucrat, but Aziz held a position equivalent to Vice President of the country. Why are so many posters here sooo concerned about Aziz’s rights? He was an Iraqi official at the highest levels during the time which said govt committed massive atrocities. Tell me, what is it about Aziz that evokes so much concern and sympathy from you people?
ppgaz
What are the charges against Aziz, again?
Not the ones invented here by knee-jerk “kiss my ass”-ers.
The official ones?
How would chaperoned and monitored contact with his family endanger the pursuit of freedom and democracy, again?
Let’s see. Suppose we had two choices in situations like this.
One would be to use the detention of Aziz, a rather well known figure in his part of the world, as an opportunity to show how a powerful, confident, peace-loving nation treats a person like Aziz? Win over a few hearts and minds over there? Deny the anti-US propagandists the chance to point to the case as another example of the heavy handedness of a mean, Arab-hating and Muslim hating country?
The other is to do … what we are doing now.
“Kiss my ass” versus “This is how America is different and better.”
Who do we think the audience is? NASCAR race fans? Or, young, hot headed Muslims who are looking for reasons to strap on some SEMTEX for Allah?
I think this is a case of bloodying nose to spite face.
Rick
I gather from the tenor of some responses here that the oft-derided “Mission Accomplished” poster on the Abe Lincoln spelled out the truth.
Merry Christmas/War is Over/Let Tarik Aziz hook up with Mark Geragos on Court TV.
Toss him totally to the Iraqi government. His service to Saddam hurt that nation the most. And, he’s famously a Christian, so his torments really ought to delight some of the clientele here. But standards seem to shift from thread to thread.
Cordially…
Andrew J. Lazarus
What I meant, Darrell, is that I would countenance continued detention for terrorists who had been convicted at a fair tribunal where they present a defense. Not that I support the right of Pres. Bush and his Band of Bloggers to authorize indefinite detention of anyone in the world they can capture, on their own say so.
Alternatively, if you wish to confect the claim that the war is not over (although from a legal standpoint, I don’t think this is true, at least with respect to Afghanistan), then the detainess must be treated as POWs until a tribunal finds they were unlawful combatants. Mind you, the idea that prisoners were repatriated at the end of the war in which they had been captured was hitherto understood as the particular war in which they had fought, and not some vague and permanent crusade against evil.
What is unconscionable is, first, the Administration’s strategy of mix-and-match POW and other designations with the precise intent of arrogating to itself the power to shut people away indefinitely and without any sort of challenge (which, you will recall, they also intended to extend to US citizens like José Padilla) and, second, your blasé attitude towards this claim completely unprecedented in American leal history. (And, no, I haven’t forgotten about Manzanar.)