Senator mistaken on NDAA and Guantanamo

Back in May, when the US House of Representatives passed the National Defense Authorization Act for the fiscal year of 2012, I wrote to my state Senator, Mike Johanns of Nebraska.  There are some things that I should explain first before moving on:

• The National Defense Authorization Act FY 2012 (or NDAA 2012) is an appropriations bill (that is, a bill defining where and how much money can be spent over the next fiscal year).  Like its sister bill in 2011, the NDAA 2012 basically precludes Guantánamo inmates from every entering the US mainland - to be resettled or for federal trials - and creates very stringent requirements for countries wishing to resettle released brothers (read: impossible).  Over the past year, its affect has been to shut down any transfers from Guantánamo, leaving the remaining 171 men wondering if they will ever leave the island prison.
• Yes, I’m originally from Nebraska.  Many people -- including many Americans -- won’t know where that state is.  For reference, it is bang centre of the States and it doesn’t have much claim to fame (although Bruce Springsteen named one album ‘Nebraska’, we invented ‘Kool-Aid’ and have a replica Stonehenge made of old cars...).  Nebraska is a Republican state.  So Republican, in fact, it is the definition of a red state.  

I’m still registered to vote in Nebraska.  So when I was outraged that the people in the House of Representatives - the people claiming they represent me and my views - passed the NDAA 2012, I wrote to my state’s senator, Mike Johanns in hopes that he would speak out in the Senate against the bill. (In America, a bill doesn’t become law until passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate; it then goes to the President to be signed into law). 

His response at the end of October enraged me as it’s clear that Johanns will actually be joining in the fight to pass the NDAA (the letter is attached for those of you keen to become enraged too). 

What really angers me about Johanns’ response is that he reassures me that he has visited Guantánamo - in May 2009 - so he really knows what’s happening.  He then refers to the men as “radical Islamic terrorists...that require[] our constant vigilance” and “dangerous terrorists”.  What I want to know is how many of the men Johanns chatted with during his May 2009 visit to GTMO.  I have been to GTMO many times since May 2009 and I have yet to think any of the men I’ve met there were dangerous at all and that they could not peacefully co-exist in American neighbourhoods. (Plus, multiple communities have offered Reprieve client, Ahmed Belbacha, among other brothers in GTMO a home in their neighbourhoods.) 

Perhaps even more disappointing than his hateful labeling of these human beings simply because they’re Muslim is that he does so without ever offering them the chance to defend themselves.  He writes that military commissions are important “in trying and punishing enemy combatants of war”.  Shouldn’t we have a fair trial first to determine if these men slated for military commissions are enemy combatants first then?  Also, what military commissions is he speaking of?  The ones I know of certainly are not “fair and open”.

In his penultimate paragraph to me, Johanns writes

Violent extremists have proven that they hate Americans and have no regard for human life.

The sad irony of this statement is that by keeping Guantánamo open, the American government only makes extremists; only by conducting fair trials excluding torture evidence can we ensure that extremism ends.  We must practice what we preach.  We cannot lead the world in human rights by locking up 171 men and throwing away the key. 

Finally, perhaps Senator Johanns should look at that sentence and examine his own ideals.  “No regard for human life” reflects American government policies at the moment.  One hundred seventy-one men have lost almost a decade of their life without the opportunity to defend themselves. (And furthermore, as I’m writing this in Pakistan, Americans have no regard for human life as they continue to conduct drone strikes in parts of Pakistan, killing innocent men, women and children by the hundreds, perhaps thousands).  

I’m sorely disappointed that my voice in the US Senate is that of Mike Johanns - a man who obviously speaks without surveying all of the facts first.  

For those Americans out there reading this, please contact your Senators immediately and ask them to strip the NDAA FY 2012 of sections 1031, 1032 and 1033 from the bill.