Michael Chugani writes the “Public Eye” column in the South China Morning Post, always worth reading and I like his columns (pdf here). Here, though, he seems to drift astray.
It doesn’t seem strange at all to me to assume that a self-confessed member of the outfit you’re at war with (al-Qaeda) should be jailed in a military facility and interrogated for all that he knows – which includes, by a report today, that he knows of at least 20 others are being trained to carry out similar attacks. My father interrogated Japanese prisoners of war in WWII, did so without any torture, and extracted valuable intel. What’s wrong with doing the same now? Shouldn't we find out about those 20 other would-be pantie bombers, without having to do a deal?
It doesn’t seem strange at all to me to assume that a self-confessed member of the outfit you’re at war with (al-Qaeda) should be jailed in a military facility and interrogated for all that he knows – which includes, by a report today, that he knows of at least 20 others are being trained to carry out similar attacks. My father interrogated Japanese prisoners of war in WWII, did so without any torture, and extracted valuable intel. What’s wrong with doing the same now? Shouldn't we find out about those 20 other would-be pantie bombers, without having to do a deal?
It’s a straw man argument to assume that it’s either civilian court – with “constitutional protection” -- or it’s waterboarding and nail-pulling. More than just the ol' curmudgeon Dick Cheney are asking the same question: why civilian court? Where, predictably, he's pleaded "not guilty", when we all know -- he has admitted he did it, 30 people saw him do it, one Dutch hero wrestled him to the ground as he was in the process of doing it -- that he's guilty, guilty, guilty....
Chugani’s piece indented, interspersed with my comments:
Let's torture the Nigerian nutcase who tried to blow up a Detroit-bound plane.
PF comment: “Nutcase”?? The pantie-bomber Abdulmutallab had become entranced with Islam, in what he called its “pure” form. That is, he read the Koran and the Hadith and studied the life of Muhammad. He learnt that it’s obligatory for Muslims to expand Islam, by stealth or by force, and killing non-belivers is justified in that aim. That’s learning from the core values and tenets of Islam.
That’s not being a “nutcase”. Interesting, by the way, that Obama was quick to jump to the conclusion that he was a “solitary extremist”, while he had earlier lectured on the need not to jump to conclusions in the case of the Hasam Nidal killings at Fort Hood: the clear implication being in that case: don’t jump to the conclusion that Nidal was a Jihadist killer. He got both wrong of course. Nidal was indeed a Jihadist killer and Adbulmutallab was not solitarly: he had consulted with al-Qaeda in Yemen before trying to blow up his undies and all the passengers and crew of Flight 253).
That'll teach him. That'll make him finger the masterminds who ordered the Christmas Day attack. Barack Obama's political opponents are taunting the US president for being soft on terror. They're calling him a wimp for giving the Nigerian his day in court instead of sending him to a torture chamber. Among the right-wing Republicans demanding that he be stripped of his constitutional rights are former vice-president Dick Cheney, failed presidential candidate Pat Buchanan and former homeland security chief Tom Ridge.
PF: Why does a Nigerian, on an international flight, who was caught red-pantied, who has admitted to trying to kill nearly 300 passengers, get to have US “constitutional rights”? I don’t get that. And it’s not just right wing nutters like Cheney that are asking that same question. Of those nearly 300 passengers, some would even have been innocents –that is, some would have been Muslims, the only true “innocents ” in the judgment of some Muslims .
Sure, let's start pulling out his toenails, his teeth and pouring water on his blindfolded face to simulate drowning. Then let's lock him up for life without a trial.
PF: There’s no need to pull out toenails or waterboard. There’s simply the need to be able to question in a military prison without the presence of a lawyer telling him to shut up. We are, after all – and even Obama says this – at war, even if it’s a war that many of us would rather not have been started in the first place. My father tells of interrogating Japanese prisoners of war in Papua New Guinea in WWII and they got lots of useful intelligence, without the need to torture.
And in jail for the rest of his life: well, yes, why not. He tried and nearly succeeded in killing nearly 300 people (some of them innocent….: see above….)
Quite a few other countries do that sort of thing, so why not the US? There is of course the small matter of the US lecturing others against such behaviour in its annual human rights and torture reports. But who says you have to practise what you preach?
PF: Again, there’s no need to assume torture if you just keep him out of the civil justice system and put him in the military one. That’s a straw man argument, Michael!
