[The Toronto Star, Canada]
Financial Times Deutschland, Germany
World's Hopes
Dashed By 'George W. Obama'
"This
decision isn't a belated insight, but the pathetic faltering of a man forced to
confront a disastrous legacy … The tribunals Bush launched are a scandal in
themselves. They restrict the rights to legal representation of the accused,
accept rumours as evidence and classify statements extracted under torture as
confessions. No one who defends these institutions ought to criticise Islam's
Sharia courts.
By
Fidelius Schmid
Translated
By Helene Grinsted
May
20, 2009
Germany - Financial Times Deutschland -
Original Article (German)
The decision of the U.S. President
to retain military tribunals for prisoners at Guantánamo may be a matter of domestic
politics and considered tactically correct. But morally and legally, it's a
disaster.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
There are hundreds of reasons
why the Americans and the rest of the world found Barack Obama so fantastic. He
is rhetorically brilliant, good looking, and above all he promised one thing: change.
What to some sounded like a hollow phrase reflected in a single word a global wish:
someone had to come to break with the eight terrible years of George W. Bush as
President of the United States and commander-in-chief of the world's strongest
military machine. And radically, to be sure.
Obama did it - right in his
inaugural address. He, his deputy Joe Biden and his Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton haven't let an opportunity pass to point out that such-and-such
terrible decision had been made during the Bush era, and that therefore, it belonged
to the past.
But now, Obama has made a number
of serious dents in this myth. He doesn't want members of the CIA, who acted on
behalf of the Bush Administration, to face prosecution for torture. Notwithstanding
a judicial decision to the contrary, the President doesn't want photos that
show U.S. soldiers abusing prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq to be published.
BROKEN PROMISES
And now, contrary to every
established Western legal principle, Obama even wants to resurrect the military
tribunals that the Bush Administration wanted to use to convict terror suspects.
This decision isn't a belated insight, but the pathetic faltering of a man forced
to confront a disastrous legacy.
In any case, this is a clear breach
of a key campaign promise. Obama spoke out repeatedly and clearly against these
bogus courts. And now? Have they all of a sudden become hunky-dory?
In no way. The tribunals Bush
launched are a scandal in themselves. They restrict the rights to legal
representation of the accused, accept rumours as evidence and classify statements
extracted under torture as confessions. No one who defends these institutions
ought to criticise Islam's Sharia courts.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
Granted, Obama wants to
improve the tribunals. Statements elicited with the use of so-called waterboarding
and other cruel interrogation techniques will no longer be admissible. This
alleviates some of the scandal - but as far as the world is concerned, it
doesn't end it. With all due respect and understanding for what may seem like
good domestic politics, this decision is counter-productive and unnecessary.
In the American prison camps at
Guantánamo, Bagram Air Base (Afghanistan) and everywhere else, there are, broadly
speaking, two types of detainees: those who the U.S. arrested because they are
combatants for the other side in a war, and those who American secret service
agents or soldiers captured somewhere in the world and abducted for being
terror suspects.
What vexes opponents of the U.S.
war in Afghanistan or Iraq is that no one can blame the Americans for not
releasing fighters on the nearest street corner only to watch them reach
for their weapons the next day. For these prisoners there can therefore be only two
possibilities: the U.S. can hand them over to Afghan or Iraqi authorities - or they
can be held as prisoners of war. This is legitimate. But the prisoners then are
entitled to all rights under the Geneva Convention for the protection of
prisoners of war.
Things are different for terror suspects from around the world who are still in U.S. custody. Membership in a terrorist group, as well as the planning and carrying out terrorist attacks, are criminal acts - even when the suspects are on the other side of an armed conflict. These people deserve to be brought before a proper court - with all the rights that defendants are entitled to.
Isn't it complicated, and doesn't
it take a long time to sentence someone in a proper court? Isn't it true that
one cannot be convicted without proof of guilt beyond the shadow of a doubt?
Some culprit could inadvertently get off? Yes, that's true. And yes, it's
impractical. But those are the rules - and they are the best that the U.S. and
all Western democracies have come up with. They differentiate Western
democracies from dictatorships, sham democracies and theocracies.
Together they form one of our
greatest achievements: the Rechtsstaat [exercise of government rule constrained
by the law]. And we cannot unceremoniously
consign it to a corner when it becomes a bother.
It is all the more terrifying
when Obama's capitulation is applauded as well, even more so on our side of the
Atlantic. The military tribunals are by no means, as their defenders
nonchalantly claim, without alternative. He who so argues might equally deplore
the abolition of summary execution.
CLICK HERE FOR GERMAN VERSION
[Posted by WORLDMEETS.US May 26, 2:17am]
