Air Force Col. Davis, the chief prosecutor for the Defense Department in military commissions, which have
come under fire from war critics and Bush administration opponents, provided specific details of the amenities afforded to terrorists housed at the Guantanamo detention center. Consider the following privileges prisoners there enjoy, keeping in mind that they are terrorists captured in battle with our troops or known to have plotted and carried out attacks worldwide, and decide for yourselves whether the notorious concentration camp-like descriptions of Guantanamo recklessly spoken by Democrats and gladly reported by the liberal media match the reality of life for prisoners:The makeshift detention center known as Camp X-Ray closed in early 2002 after just four months of use. Now it is overgrown with weeds and serves as home to iguanas. Yet last week ABC News published a photo online of Camp X-Ray as if it were in use, five years after its closing.
Today, most of the detainees are housed in new buildings modeled after civilian prisons in Indiana and Michigan. Detainees receive three culturally appropriate meals a day. Each has a copy of the Koran. Guards maintain respectful silence during Islam’s five daily prayer periods, and medical care is provided by the same practitioners who treat American service members. Detainees are offered at least two hours of outdoor recreation each day, double that allowed inmates, including convicted terrorists, at the “supermax” federal penitentiary in Florence, Colo.
Standards at Guantánamo rival or exceed those at similar institutions in the United States and abroad. After an inspection by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in March 2006, a Belgian police official said, “At the level of detention facilities, it is a model prison, where people are better treated than in Belgian prisons.”
Critics liken Guantánamo Bay to Soviet gulags, but reality does not match their hyperbole. The supporters of David Hicks, the detainee popularly known as the “Australian Taliban,” asserted that Mr. Hicks was mistreated and wasting away. But at his March trial, where he pleaded guilty to providing material support to a terrorist organization, he and his defense team stipulated he was treated properly. Mr. Hicks even thanked service members, and as one Australian newspaper columnist noted, he appeared in court “looking fat, healthy and tanned, and cracking jokes.”
Given the descriptions offered by Col. Davis and from the firsthand accounts I have been privy to, it would seem that terrorists captured in Iraq and Afghanistan and held in Guantanamo enjoy far better living standards and hygienic conditions than media darling Paris Hilton recently experienced in Los Angeles County jail facilities. Where were the calls from the liberal media to close down the L.A. County jails for their inhumanity? Where were the arguments that America is losing its moral high ground through its substandard prison facilities for convicted celebrities? Celebrities should be outraged that terrorists receive better treatment at Guantanamo!
Col. Davis performed a further act of educational service for liberals who insist that military commissions do not comply with Geneva Convention articles. Not surprisingly, the Bush administration did its homework on the legalities of the powers of a commander in chief and came to the appropriate conclusion that military commissions do in fact provide all of the fundamental guarantees of Article 75 of the Geneva Convention Protocol:
Each accused receives a copy of the charges in his native language; outside influence on witnesses and trial participants is prohibited; the accused may challenge members of the commission; an accused may represent himself or have assistance of counsel; he is presumed innocent until guilt is established beyond a reasonable doubt; he is entitled to assistance to secure evidence on his behalf; he is not required to incriminate himself at trial and his silence is not held against him; he may not be tried a second time for the same offense; and he is entitled to the assistance of counsel through four stages of post-trial appellate review ending at the United States Supreme Court.
One myth is that the accused can be excluded from his trial and convicted on secret evidence. The administrative boards that determine if a detainee is an enemy combatant and whether he is a continuing threat may consider classified information in closed hearings outside the presence of the detainee. But military commissions may not. The act states, “The accused shall be permitted ... to examine and respond to evidence admitted against him on the issue of guilt or innocence and for sentencing.” Unless the accused chooses to skip his trial or is removed for disruptive behavior, he has the right to be present and to confront all of the evidence.
Despite all of these legal protections, none of which are offered to U.S. troops who have the misfortune of falling into terrorist hands, critics of Guantanamo have continued to argue that military commissions are unfair because hearsay evidence is permitted and considered for or against the defendant. U.S. criminal courts, where liberals apparently feel more comfortable about prosecuting terrorists, do not allow hearsay testimony. Col. Davis exposed the fallacy of this argument over the unfairness of military commissions and hearsay testimony by reminding critics of the following point:
…While this standard permits admission of some evidence that would not be admissible in federal courts, the rights afforded Americans are not the benchmark for assessing rights afforded enemy combatants in military tribunals.
There is no ban on hearsay among the indispensable rights listed in the Geneva Conventions. Nor is there a ban on hearsay for the United Nations-sanctioned war crimes tribunals, including the International Criminal Court, the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and the Special Court for Sierra Leone. The Nuremberg trials also did not limit hearsay evidence. Simply stated, a ban on hearsay is not an internationally recognized judicial guarantee.
While Democrats, anti-war demonstrators, and the eager liberal media pummel the Bush administration for allegedly denying captured enemy combatants due process under Geneva Protocols at Guantanamo, they either ignorantly or intentionally disregard the fact that their sacred Geneva Protocols have been complied with in full and the prisoner facilities are superior in all respects to the standards of prisons anywhere in the world. Col. Davis’s guest editorial proved once again that when it comes to the ridiculous accusations from the left that President Bush and Vice President Cheney committed alleged “war crimes” related to treatment of enemy combatants in the War on Terror, there is plenty of hysteria but no substance.
Congratulations to the New York Times for doing, in this case at least, its job by publishing a conservative rebuttal to 4 years of misleading and inaccurate liberal reports of conditions at Guantanamo. Perhaps the Times will now run a series of editorials in which it will seek to repair the damage it has done to worldwide opinion of President Bush’s integrity on this issue after relentlessly impugning it for years. I won’t hold my breath for that to happen. That truly would be a sign that the end is near.
Technorati Tags:Guantanamo, Prisoner Treatment, Military Commissions, Geneva Convention, Bush Administration, Torture, Hearsay, Enemy Combatants
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