I’ve had time to read a lot of reaction to the article Susan and I wrote yesterday. I’ve also read plenty of right-wing reaction to the Newsweek story, more generally.

Here’s an example of the reaction I got from a reliable Democrat:

“Whether the detainees at Gitmo and elsewhere have access to soap and reading material is of little concern to me. If they flushed a Koran, or pissed on it or whatever, I do not care.”

He went on to explain that he was very concerned about issues of due process, and whether the detainees at Gitmo were truly guilty, or a threat. But I couldn’t get past the “I do not care”.

:::Flip:::

There are a number of issues here. The first question I ask is, why would ‘we’ piss on a Qur’an? Does pissing on a Qur’an make a Muslim more willing to divulge information? Is this act effective?

Is anyone willing to step forward and defend the position that pissing on Qur’ans is an effective interrogation technique? But let’s not just focus on the most offensive act. Does this whole program of deliberately assaulting the detainee’s religious sensibilities and interfering with their ability to carry out the duties of their faith actually result in better cooperation and better intelligence?

And if we stipulate, for the sake of argument, that this program is effective, is that effectiveness not overwhelmed by the incredible damage that is done when the program’s tactics are leaked out?

My Democratic friend continues:

“But in the end the question remains, who gives a shit if we pissed on a Koran and why was it so important to tell the world what we did? Especially if it was going to inflame the Muslims.”

The reasons I give a shit are manifold. It’s a violation of the Geneva Convention’s guidelines for the Treatment of Prisoners of War to interfere with detainees ability to exercise their faith. In other words, it’s against the law. We are signatories to the Geneva Conventions, and the Constitution of the United States declares:

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

The Bush administration has attempted to exempt the Gitmo detainees by calling them ‘enemy combatants’, but that is just a bit of sophistry. They are prisoners of war.

And this leads us to the next problem. This is ‘a different kind of war’. The detainees at Gitmo come from many nations, including nations that are our ostensible allies. There is no prospect of us ever accepting the surrender of their home countries and then repatriating them under the terms of a surrender agreement.

Yet, many of the detainees were not originally associated with al-Qaeda, or any terrorist organization. Some were swept up on the battlefield in Afghanistan. Poor farmer boys
that were forcibly enlisted into the Taliban are not a serious threat to our national security. That is, they are not such a threat until we denigrate their religion and abuse their Holy book.

Many other detainees are victims of our bounty program. We pay bounties to Pakistanis and Afghans to turn over terrorists. They tend to turn in Arabs. But some of these Arabs may be missionaries, or humanitarian workers, or pilgrims, or vacationers. We have to interrogate them to find out if they are really terrorists. Abusing their religious sensibilities may turn an innocent man into a sworn enemy.

And this leads to the last point. Why is it so important to tell the world that we have been using a program of religious humiliation as an interrogation technique?

On one level, it isn’t. If it really were effective, and necessary, we would not want to tell the world that we are doing it. But we didn’t tell the world. The detainees told the world, their attorneys told the world. The pictures at Abu Ghraib told the world. Someone at the FBI leaked memos and told the world.

When deciding to use tactics that are illegal, and must be hidden from the world, it pays to consider whether you can successfully keep the tactics hidden. If you can’t, then you better factor that into your decision.

If the program of religious desecration and humiliation is going to leak, and it is going to ‘inflame the Muslim’ world, destabilize the governments of our allies, cause more terrorism, and endanger our troops, then how can the program be considered effective?

I give a shit for all these reasons.

But I what I object to most strenuously is this:

I consider this program to be immoral. Such tactics are immoral unless they are absolutely necessary. Given how much damage the use of these tactics has done to our nation’s image and credibility, given how much these tactics have endangered our troops, undermined our international relations, and provided fodder for terrorist recruitment, I can only agree that it is absolutely necessary that these tactics cease, and the people that authorized them are forced to resign.