Of Course It’s Okay When WE Do It!
So it comes to pass that Obama and company, including the the entire MSM complex and all of the “Better Than Thou” folks who railed against Gitmo, drone strikes, black site detention centers, Bush’s “illegal wars, “undeclared wars, “etc. were all all full of excrement.
So now it’s official: United States soldiers have been hunting down al Qaeda affiliates in Somalia. When the White House confirmed earlier this month what has long been an open secret, most of the ensuing chatter focused on the need for greater transparency about the expanding war on terror.
Less discussed was what happens to all those alleged terrorists when they’re captured alive.
One answer can be found here in the dusty Somali port city of Bosaso, where corrugated-metal shacks look as if they might be blown away in the next storm, and summer temperatures easily top 110 degrees. Overcrowded, underfunded, and reeking of urine, the Bosaso Central Prison could make even the most dedicated insurgent regret ever getting into the terrorism business.
What, three hots, a cot, and rec facilities at Gitmo where inhumane but “overcrowded, underfunded, and reeking of urine” is?
When President Barack Obama came into office, he expanded the scope of Central Intelligence Agency and military-drone operations in the Islamic world, while also taking steps to end America’s role in detaining suspects captured overseas in that war. He shut the remaining CIA black site prisons in Europe, and handed over high-value Iraqi detainees to the Iraqi courts. Guantanamo Bay no longer takes new inmates, though it continues to house prisoners who haven’t yet been transferred to other countries.
No, let’s not send the few prisoners we capture to a western nation because those SOB’s in Europe can’t be trusted to treat people humanely. Let’s send them to a place that’s known for its decent treatment of prisoners and its long standing history of protecting human rights. If only we could find someplace like that? Where can it be? I know! Somalia!
In practice, however, Obama’s plan to get America out of the international jailer business means that developing-world prisons have picked up the slack.
And Obama has the nerve to criticize Romeny for “outsourcing” jobs!
As Glenn Reynolds says:
All you people who were playing the have-you-no-decency card under Bush, but who aren’t screaming just as loud now — which is pretty much all of you people who were playing the have-you-no-decency card under Bush — were and are miserable lying hacks. And I thank Obama for making that perfectly clear, at least.
Reynolds is much nicer about it than me.
