Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Time to act on Gitmo complaints

Another Democrat has gone over the top in denouncing the treatment of detainees at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Last week, Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate's second-ranking Democrat, told his colleagues that in reading an FBI agent's description of what he saw at Guantanamo, "you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, of some mad regime - Pol Pot or others - that had no concern for human beings."

Not even Amnesty International invoked Hitler and Pol Pot. Durbin has now apologized for his offensive remarks, but Democrats need to get a grip on themselves. Instead of just making harsh speeches about prisoner abuse at Guantanamo, they need to do something about it. That's the challenge laid down last week by Sen. Arlen Specter, the moderate Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"Congress hasn't acted," Specter said. He is right - Congress has abdicated its responsibility by allowing the Bush administration to set the rules for the detention, interrogation and trial of detainees while lawmakers sat on the sidelines. Specter reminded his colleagues that Congress has the constitutional authority to "define appropriate treatments for captured foreign suspects."

It is about time someone in the majority party in Congress pushed to have a serious debate about what basic due process guarantees should be afforded terror suspects. Congress has left it to the administration and the courts to battle over the proper balance between civil liberties and the president's authority to conduct the war on terrorism. The Justice Department claims that the 520 or so prisoners at Guantanamo are "enemy combatants" and deserving of no due process rights, but the courts have demanded that at least some of the protections of the Constitution apply.

On multiple occasions the courts have invited Congress to establish and clarify the law on foreign detainees, but it has done nothing but complain. Specter speculated on why: "It may be that it's too hot to handle for Congress, may be that it's too complex to handle for Congress, or it may be that Congress wants to sit back as we customarily do, awaiting some action with the court no matter how long it takes: Plessy vs. Fergusson in 1896 to Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954."

The administration has wanted Congress to butt out and give the executive branch and the military a free hand to make up the rules as they go along. So far it has gotten its wish. But the administration has also bungled the task of treating detainees in a manner consistent with American principles. Instead of relentless speechifying, members of Congress should act to rein in the unfettered authority claimed by the president. Specter appears ready to lead the way. Will the Democrats follow him? Or do they prefer to sit on the sidelines and, like Durbin, sound ridiculous?

[Last modified June 23, 2005, 00:46:08]