Pacific Views

Due Process Deferred

Once upon a time the US condemned countries that "brainwashed" (*) their captives:

British detainee Moazzam Begg is among the first six prisoners cleared for possible trial. His parents say he had gone to Afghanistan to do humanitarian work—set up a school, install water pipes—and was picked up in Pakistan by American soldiers at the house where he was staying. "It is nearly a complete year since I have been in custody," he wrote to his parents early this year.

"After all this time, I still don't know what crime I am supposed to have committed. I am beginning to lose the fight against depression and hopelessness." According to lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, Begg confessed to an al-Qaeda plot to load a drone aircraft and then dust the House of Commons with anthrax. Smith, who represents the British detainees at the behest of their families, dismisses the confession as nonsense. "If you're held in solitary confinement, you're going to start making things up just to try and get out of that," he says. "Part of this whole Alice in Wonderland world is that in order to get charged with an offense down there and in order to get a lawyer, you have to agree to plead guilty."

(*) Korean War: Indoctrination and Brainwashing

By 1951 the CCF decided that there was propaganda value in a POW system. The Chinese developed eight permanent POW camps that stretched over a 50-mile sector in North Korea along the Yalu River. Survivors of the "Valleys" were brought in, and Camp 5 at Pyoktong became the main camp and headquarters for the Chinese POW command. The CCF segregated the POWs according to rank, race and nationality and created interrogation and indoctrination programs. With their indoctrination program, the CCF tested each prisoner's faith in the democratic process, but the Chinese sought publicity more than converts to communism. Daily propaganda lectures and broadcasts that attacked capitalist society were conducted, and the CCF persuaded some POWs to sign peace petitions and make pro-communist statements. The term "brainwashing" obtained notoriety at this time and caused concern to American authorities. Brainwashing was defined as an intense and prolonged psychological process designed to erase an individual's past beliefs and to substitute new ones. Even though some American POWs collaborated with their captors, most of them did so for personal convenience. No confirmed cases of brainwashing came out of the Korean War.

As TalkLeft points out, 20% of the prisoners are not and never have been terrorists. Isn't it nice that we have a Supreme Court willing to look into this issue? How long do you think it would have taken to get around to releasing them otherwise?