Redefining American Patriotism

MY COMMENT:

Yet another hit job, this time by the Harvard Business News, who use an anonymous author ("HarbusGM"), and of course no opportunity for direct comments.

The story repeats many myths and misconceptions about the lawful mission at the US military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Among them, that detainees there are entitled to habeas corpus (due process rights) as if they were US citizens.

The US Supreme Court has ruled that Gitmo detainees may apply for habeas corpus, but those who have done so have been unsuccessful. The right to apply for habeas was determined by one erroneous decision that because Gitmo was "defacto US territory" foreign unlawful combatants could apply for habeas and retain civilian attorney's to do so.

Another item stacked in detainees favor is the 2009 Military Commissions Act, hastily presented after President Barack Hussein Obama's inauguration, it gave Gitmo detainees accused of war crimes (fewer than a dozen of the nearly 800 detainees ever to move through Gitmo) virtually the SAME rights you or I would enjoy in a federal court of law.

The article never mentions that 731 detainees have been RELEASED from Gitmo since early 2002, and that NONE of them were beheaded, executed, hacked to death, blown up, dragged naked and lifeless through the streets, drowned or burned alive; all things our enemies have done to us and/or our allies.

There is no moral equivalent between Gitmo and how our enemies treat their captives. The Islamist equivalent to Gitmo is a pile of heads.

Also never mentioned by Harvard, the events of 9/11/2001, the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl by Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, who is currently held at Gitmo and faces trial in 2021.

While incarcerated at Gitmo, detainees enjoy FREE Qurans, prayer rugs/beads, halal and special Muslim holy holiday meals, Ramadan observance, directions to Mecca painted on guard towers and cell floors, services of US military Muslim Chaplains, world class medical, dental and vision care, recreation, TV, DVD's, video games, library, sports and more! "Club GTMO" is a Muslim paradise!

If Gitmo were illegal it would be closed.

International Committee of the Red Cross Physicians I worked with there told me "No one does [detention operations] better than the US." Their biggest complaint while I was there from February to June, 2002, as the ranking US Army Medical Department officer with the Joint Detainee Operations Group, Joint Task Force 160, was that we took the candy out of the MRE (Meals Ready to Eat Army field rations) we gave to detainees (and US personnel) for the noon meal. That's it. We did that for behavior modification. It worked in getting difficult detainees to comply with directives, so the detainees complained to the ICRC.

Gitmo is not perfect, as I describe in my book, "Saving Grace at Guantanamo Bay: A Memoir of a Citizen Warrior," but it is an essential piece to the big puzzle of how we win the Global War on Terror.

American Patriotism and integrity are alive and well, yes even at Gitmo, where some of the finest, most disciplined military personnel on earth serve tirelessly, 24/7/365, for US, and well within the Geneva Conventions and Law of Land Warfare.

Justice will be done.