The Detainee Shell Game

Afghan men in Kabul in February after they were freed from the United States prison at Bagram. Syed Jan Sabawoon/European Pressphoto Agency

From The Washington Post:

The revelation last weekend that the United States is increasingly using foreign intelligence services to capture, interrogate and detain terrorist suspects points up an uncomfortable truth about the war against Islamist terrorists. Demands to raise legal standards for terrorist suspects in one arena often lead to compensating tactics in another arena that leave suspects (and, sometimes, innocent civilians) worse off.

The U.S. rendition program -- which involves capturing suspected terrorists and whisking them to another country, outside judicial process -- began in the 1990s. The government was under pressure to take terrorists off the streets and learn what they knew. But it could not bring them to the United States because U.S. law made it too hard to effectively interrogate and incapacitate them here. So instead it shipped them to Egypt and other places to achieve the same end.

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My Comment: Because holding enemy combatants only produces legal and political problems galore, this work is now being farmed out to our allies. From Iraq, Afghanistan, and god only knows where else, detainees that would have been put (in the past) under U.S. protection are now under the jurisdiction of others. One can only imagine what is happening there .... but from my point of view .... I can only hope that the intelligence that they obtained will be passed onto us.

As for the U.S. Government that has put us in this bind .... if something goes drastically wrong .... i.e. another 9/11 .... and the fault is found because of faulty intelligence gleamed from our allies who are now doing our dirty work .... I can only hope that the responsible politicians (the President included) be held accountable for putting us in this untenable situation.