In his discussion of the recent arguments over Guantanamo, Matt at Blackfive links to me with the following sentence:
Jack at Random Fate seems to believe that we’re not better than those that oppose us and wants Gitmo shut down.
Apparently, people have been misunderstanding my fundamental point on the holding facility/prison at Guantanamo. I responded in the comments to his post:
I want to make one thing crystal clear:
I have never said that the US is no better than the terrorists or other “detainees” at Guantanamo.
My fundamental point is directed towards those who defend the prison there by saying things like “well, the terrorists do this”. By their very arguments, they are saying, “well, even if we had some bad actors, our behavoirs are not bad because what our enemies do is worse.”
That sort of moral relativism is typically decried in the loudest terms by the very people who are now using it to defend what has happened in Guantanamo.
To make it perfectly clear, what I am saying is that our standards must be independent of how our enemies behave, and our standards should be that at the minimum we treat our imprisoned enemies (prisoners, detainees, whatever you want to term them) at least as well as we would have our own treated if captured.
Since the facility at Guantanamo is not open to review of prisoner treatment in a clear and open fashion, then all the accusations of mistreatment gain credibility.
Since the facility at Guantanamo was built at that location specifically to be outside of the jurisdiction of the US legal system, it gives it an air of “something is rotten in Denmark”.
If there was a clear review process, and if the facility was open for inspection by anyone, then the accusations of mistreatment would have no credibility.
Is maintaining an oubliette-type holding facility truly the way that an honorable nation acts?
I begin to wonder if some read any criticism of US behavior as equating us with the enemy.
If we don’t hold ourselves accountable to high standards of behavior, who will?
A man, or a nation, of honor does not set the standards of his behavior by being “not as bad” as the enemy.
A man, or a nation, of honor does not do the expedient, easy thing at the cost of honor.
At times, behaving honorably does have a cost, but what cost is higher than that of lost honor?
In the past, the answer to that question was obvious.
And now?
From some of the same sources who cried that Clinton dishonored the Presidency by his behavior come statements like “no matter what we’ve done, our enemies have done worse.”
Like everything else in this sordid age, honor is sacrificed on the altar of expediency.
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