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Beyond Orwell: the existential threat of Guantanamo detainees
10:43 AM ET
Ben Davis [University of Toledo College of Law]: "Taking together the report of the Justice Department filing to reduce access of lawyers to GITMO detainee clients, the medical establishment's approach to those detainees, and snippets of George Tenet's interview on 60 Minutes about his new book, one can see that these detainees are perceived as much more than just enemies of the state. Rather they are existential threats to the self-image of all the persons saying "We do not condone or do torture."
What the representatives of the state say and what these detainees say was done to them is too much of a contradiction. To eliminate the contradiction, the representatives of the state do everything to eliminate the existential threat to their self-worth - to silence the threatening other vision. Of course, this can be psychologically reconciled through seeing these detainees also as existential threats to the state - enemies of the state - against whom all can be done as the end justify the means. In this regard, they seek to remind us of the feeling after 9/11 to help them rationalize their actions beyond law.
This reminds me of the discussion of thanatophores ("death bringers") in a book entitled the Psychopathology of Institutional Links. The way to battle death bringers in that book was to "bring light". This effort to bring light is precisely what so many persons are trying to do to fight this very twisted stuff that goes even beyond Orwell. We should continue to resist these efforts to legitimize an illegality and gain our acquiescence - if for no other reason then to lay down a marker that certain types of state action are simply not acceptable. This is the task of citizens as they speak to their government. We should not grant (nor permit these representatives of the state to grant themselves) some type of absolution - way too convenient. Not before the full story comes out and high-level civilians are made accountable for what they countenanced and ordered."
Opinions expressed in JURIST's Hotline are the sole responsibility of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of JURIST's editors, staff, or the University of Pittsburgh.
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Comments:
I have given some thought to your blog comments and feel that any investigation of this matter should be done through the process of congressional oversight (which they should have been doing all along) and that it should be done in executive session - partly for the reasons that grand juries conduct their investigations in secret and partly because there will likely be national security issues involved. I would also comment that I believe that "grave" violations of the Geneva Conventions should never be made lawful under our laws, but I also think that there may be times when, if committed, they should not be prosecuted (WE have no way of knowing whether the present circumstances would justify such a deviation). From your note, I assume you will disagree strongly with the latter point, but I think, ultimately, that government's primary function is to protect society and that there may be times when the ordinary trade-offs we have made between liberty and security must be re-evaluated (i.e., Lincoln also suspended habeas corpus in violation of clear provisions in the Constitution, and I think he was right to do so).
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Friday, April 27, 2007
