Foodless In Guantanamo

Nora Ephron—the esteemed writer/director/producer—blogs on HuffPo about whether the American public knows or cares about the recent hunger strike at Gitmo, and draws parallels between apathy now and during World War II:

Of the 385 men detained at Guantanamo, only ten have been charged. How is this possible? In the United States of America? You can blame Bush/Cheney if you want; you can blame our justice system, which moves sluggishly through the Guantanamo cases, deferring to the legislative branch, which then does nothing. But what about us? What are we doing about Guantanamo? Nothing, just as my parents did nothing about the injustices they knew about. And why not? It's simple. We're too busy.

Fair point, but I would add an additional wrinkle (which I think differentiates Gitmo, GWOT, and the MCA from WWII). It isn’t just that we’re busy, it’s that even engaged Americans—of purest conscience—are grappling with highly technical points of law and an administration dedicated to keeping us deliberately confused.For instance, as Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, the JAG defense lawyer for Hamdan, described it, Guantanamo Bay was chosen as the detention site for individuals detained post-9/11 because it’s a total “legal black hole.”But what exactly does that mean? Well, in essence, it refers to the fact that Gitmo falls within an abyss of legal ambiguity. How does habeas apply to folks, captured overseas, who have never touched American soil, but are under sole American custody in a physical territory under sole American control but not American sovereignty? Confused? Me too.Gitmo is so weird because it’s under ultimate Cuban sovereignty, but under effective American control. The perpetual lease can only be broken with the joint approval of both governments, which ain’t going to happen, for obvious reasons.So, that nicety of international law has facilitated this confusion over the application of habeas in what is a totally novel situation. And, when we get confused, we get disengaged.Here’s the bottom line, however. The United States has detained close to 400 individuals without charge or any meaningful opportunity to challenge the legal or factual basis for their detention, for more than four years now—longer than the period from Pearl Harbor to V-J Day.That’s the ball we need to glue our eyes to. Habeas rights are the key ingredient in what process America considers due to all prisoners—from Salim Ahmed Hamdan to Scooter Libby. The MCA denies them completely. This is new, and it’s wrong.