Stoopid Stuff

...And Justice for All?

There are many stories to be told about the individuals in Guantanamo, Baghram, Abu Ghraib and the other prisons in the US gulag. Some are about bad, dangerous men made uncontrollably angry and dangerous by years of custody, isolation, torture and lack of due process. Many, probably most, are about innocent young men sold to the US as terrorists to make a few dollars, or to settle a score. Because America, as a nation, lost it's way and it's will to live by it's own rules after September 11th, all these stories are egregious violations of everything we believed and everything we believed America stood for. In our terror, we allowed ourselves, as a nation, to be afraid of a few individuals, to the point where we wouldn't let these wretched individuals communicate with their families or be represented by attorneys. That is certainly sickening, but it's sad too. It's the demise of a great idea, and the success of terrorists, whose goal, after all, was to terrorize America into changing. It worked.

But some of these stories are not quite as clear cut as that. Some occupy that grey area that an honest system of justice can address if allowed to work. When not allowed to work, they represent a travesty of justice. John Walker Lindh, an American citizen, was captured by US forces in Afghanistan in late November 2001. David Hicks, an Australian, was also captured in Afghanistan by US forces less than a month later.

When Lindh was captured, he had been wounded and in very bad conditions with little food, shelter or clean water for a week. Instead of giving him medical care and food, he was duct-taped naked to a stretcher and left for days freezing in a metal shipping container. Hicks was captured by a warlord and given to US special forces for $1000.00. Tortured, mistreated and held in solitary confinement at the US Detention facility at Guantanamo Bay Cuba for years, it appeared that he would spend the rest of his life in American Military custody.

Then came political strife for the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard. He's fighting for his political life, with elections this year and his popularity plummeting due to his support for the deeply unpopular Bush administration and the Iraq war. So our own Darth Vadar, Dick Cheney went down there and cut a deal. Hicks would get a plea bargain - seven years, with all but seven months suspended. Interesting, as that keeps him in prison only until the end of the year - with elections to be held in October or November. Plus, as part of the agreement, he cannot speak about his captivity for a year, and he can never sue the US or seek redress for his illegal treatment in US custody.

But John Lindh had the misfortune to come to trial less than a year after the September eleventh terrorist attacks, while the US was still at the height of anti-terrorism hysteria. So he pleaded guilty to two minor charges - joining the Taliban army and carrying a weapon - and accepted a twenty year sentence. That's right. Hicks is held for five years without trial, convicted on actual terrorism charges and yet will serve less than a year in prison in Australia. Lindh got twenty years without ever being convicted of any terror related charge.

This unacceptable miscarriage of justice can easily be rectified. John Walker Lindh is not a threat to America. John Lindh has clearly served enough time. Let this misguided young man, who certainly made some bad choices, none of which harmed any American other than himself, go home to his family. To continue to imprison him at this point is unnecessary and cruel. It serves no purpose, and is completely disproportionate when measured against terrorism suspects tried since.

By illegally torturing and mistreating terror suspects, the US has undermined it's ability to get real justice. These suspects, from the most hardened to the most innocent, cannot be allowed to describe the circumstances of the detention in open court. The judge will simply release them, as well he should. So the vast majority will be railroaded on bogus "plea deals" that will keep them in prison and their mouths shut, or they will simply be held without trial or process forever. The American system of justice did not fail them - the American government, acting like the brutal thugs in a banana republic, prevented the system from working.

John Walker Lindh represents one opportunity to get it right. An American citizen. Mistreated, but not systematically tortured. His sentence could be commuted. Compassion could be allowed to serve us all today, without threatening Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld or any of these other criminals that now must hide behind Soviet era judicial practices in order to stave off indictments. This is a chance we cannot afford to miss, if our nation is to retain any semblance of her soul.

posted by mikey @ 1:52 PM