Rick, you yourself have argued for more commitment to winning. If we’re not willing to besmirch our consciences a little in order to defeat a fanatical and tyrannical enemy that wishes to obliterate our culture and its heritage, then we will lose. Period.

You cannot be unmoved by this issue.

Sure I can. Watch this: I don’t care. I don’t lose sleep over the fact that there are innocent men locked up at Gitmo. At least, not at the present time. All this does is give our enemies yet another club to hit us with. Do you think they honestly give a rats’ a– about violations of “human rights”? The jihadists know we do, though, so their PR men and other apologists will take every opportunity to spin this to their advantage. As if their record on
“human rights” was exemplary. The United States could have a spotless human rights record and still the terrorist apologists would complain; and if they can’t find anything to complain about, they will simply make stuff up, as the recent series of “fauxtographs” amply demonstrates.

You cannot dismiss the evidence as the rantings of leftists or of the enemies of the United States. You cannot chalk it up to MSM bias or to Democrats playing politics. The evidence of our turpitude is convincing and cannot be denied.

Considering that in earlier wars, all of those men now being held would have been summarily shot on the spot as spies with no trial or legal representation, I’d say they’re lucky to be alive.

And I’m not denying any of the evidence you have presented. I only question whether this is a good time to pursue it, and I would argue that it is not. Later on, after the jihadist threat has been successfully eliminated, will there be time for boards of inquiry and public investigations and prosecutions for malfeasance and all that.

Too often the “human rights” stick has been a tool of corrupt third world thugs, who themselves laugh at the very concept, to whack the West. As far as I’m concerned, they can stuff it.

Those are excellent points. But I think the torture issue is entirely separate from the rights issue.

I think there was some torture at Gitmo and there was some other things that some people don’t consider torture but the Geneva Convention does. But Gulags? Hitler? You and I both know that rhetoric was used to score political and propaganda points, not describe conditions there.

But settling the rights issue is paramount. And that we can do in a matter of days if the Congress puts its mind to it.

I can’t speak for the silence of the entire conservative wilderness, but
I can for myself. The problem for me has been information (and
misinformation and propaganda) overload. Organizations like Amnesty
International and the Red Cross should be pressing this issue, and the
political opposition in this country could effect some positive action.
The problem is when I hear these voices, they speak time and again
likening Gitmo to the Soviet Gulag, or comparing our military guard at
Gitmo to Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot, or lamenting the regular practice
of torture methods (like sleep deprivation). As soon as I hear someone
announce “Today a spokesman for Amnesty International (or Dick Durbin,
or Carl Levin, or whoever) said that … ,” I promptly quit listening.

I believe most Americans want to do the right thing in this regard. But rants and slogans don’t help me. Posts like this one (that attempt to
lay out facts and suggest courses of action based on a sense of justice)
do help me. Thank you.

Thank you for your service to our country in the armed forces. I think you are largely right that we are getting pummeled in the propaganda war and that screw ups like Abu Ghraib and Gitmo don’t help us. I think we need to do a better job at getting our side to the story out. In other words, we need to do a better job at countering the disinformation campaign being conducted against us by the enemy.

In many countries the state controls the press so any inforamtion contrary to the govnernment’s position will either not be reported or it will be down played. The US certainly does not want to control the press in Iraq or other Arab contries. In a hostile environment, it will be very difficult to counter the enemy’s disinformation campaign but we will need to do a better job. When we make errors, such as Gitmo or Abu Ghraib it makes the job of the enemy easier. Since we can’t control the press in Arab countries, we will need to be as close to perfect as is humanly possible. This will make their disinformation campaigns much easier to counter.

Excellent post on this. While it is true that the US treats its prisoners better than most countries do and it is true that the US treats its prisoners more humanely and with more rights than our enemies afford their prisoners, we do not compare ourselves to most countries or to our enemies. We expect the US to behave better than we expect our enemies to behave.

I supposed those who were against detaining Japanese-Americans during WWII were “making it a lot harder to win” that war too, eh? As a member of the armed forces, I fight for the values and ideals of this country which are decidedly contrary to many of our actions at Guantanamo. I think that compromising values and ideals to “win” the war will only ensure that war is lost. It’s obvious from the propaganda of our enemy that the fiasco at Guantanamo caused by us “gaming” international and domestic law is a net loss for us in this war. The Jihadi recruiting propaganda uses Guantanamo and other f*ck-ups like Abu Ghraib to beat us over the head daily and increase recruiting. We are losing the propaganda war in the Muslim world, where it’s now a given that we are racist hypocrites. Consistency in ideals and morality is critical component of counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations as anyone who knows anything about said operations knows.