For those who prize the rule of law as one of the most important factors protecting human rights worldwide, it is outrageous that the Obama administration is OK with holding prisoners at Bagram Airbase in long-term, extrajudicial detention. Despite the recent sop thrown by the US to Human Rights organizations -- to at least set up a review of prisoners's cases -- the prisoners still don't get the basic legal rights to have a lawyer, contact their families, see written charges, respond to the charges, and have access to a trial with a judge, to contest the charges, and get a decision onthe case. Those who would review the cases will not be independent prosecutors or judges, and the detainees still don't have the rights people have in the majority of countries in the world.
The long detentions are frequently linked to weak cases against detainees. Mistakes in identifying culprits are very common, as is shown by the unraveling of rape cases since DNA allows secure identification of rapists, and in war zones or terrorism hot spots the confusion and lack of communication is great, making mistakes even more likely. Many long-term US prisoners have been quietly released with time because the government simply has no case to prosecute. And both CIA and FBI officers have said in public that most of the cases of US refusal to publicize charges against long-term detainees were not related to legitimate national security issues but to hide official incompetence or illegality.
All US foreign detentions need to be properly legally handled, whether the prisoners were "rendered" or are incarcerated in their own countries. US citizens and contractors must be accountable to US laws no matter where they travel. Just as US sexual abusers who go to southeast Asia are subject to prosecution in the States, US authorities who illegally and abusively detain people abroad must be subject to adjudication in the US system. In a country practically occupied by the US, like Afghanistan, the obligation to properly adjudicate cases is even stronger. If classified information really is at issue in a case of detention, a US judge still can hear and decide the case.
Erroneous detention of people for suspected terrorism is very harmful to the protection of Americans from terrorist attacks because the true culprits were not apprehended, detained, and their cases prosecuted. When military or police incarcerate people without adequate evidence simply to appear to "do something" about a crime that has been committed, it means that the real criminals went scott free to continue. This is the true harm to our security.
Americans need to ask themselves how it would be if they found themselves detained in this way. Citizens who get into trouble abroad will become even more vulnerable to problems in foreign legal systems if the US does not uphold universal legal rights for foreigners. What comes around goes around.
