You're right. We send them to Gitmo, or the Salt Pit, or Abu Ghraib. Does held indefinitely without trial or charges qualify as a political prisoner? It certainly fits my definition.
Poor treatment of prisoners of war is not equivalent to imprisonment of political dissenters. The only American citizen ever held in Guantanamo was captured in Afghanistan fighting against the U.S. and was transferred out.
They are not prisoners of war. Treatment of POWs is covered by all sorts of international treaties. Guess what? Waterboarding is not exactly sanctioned by any of those.
Nope, our government has defined them as "unlawful enemy combatants," whatever the fuck those are. Basically, it means that we can hold them without trial until the "Global War on Terror" is over. I will ask again, how are these not political prisoners?
No, we say they aren't prisoners of war and are thus exempt from the protections given to prisoners of war, but they are. That's part of the mistreatment of POWs. But the fact hat we're trying to get around the treaties protecting POWs doesn't make these people "political prisoners." They're not being held because they're political dissenters. They're held because they were captured in theaters of war.
Whether or not somebody is a terrorist is largely a matter of perception. Consider the case of Shaker Aamer.
"The Northern Alliance took him into custody in Jalalabad on 24 November 2001, and passed him to the Americans. The US routinely paid ransom for Arabs handed over to them."
"Status: Cleared for release in 2007. Still held at Guantanamo."
I will grant you, if you want to narrowly define political prisoner to someone who is exclusively a political dissident, you are right. How do you classify people held for over a decade without charges? The political prisoner label is expedient because it implies that the reasons for holding that person are that they are simply undesirable, and that they should not be allowed to be a part of a society; not because they are guilty of some specific act. Hell, even political prisoners get their day in kangaroo court. We have not even put up show trials for these men.
> Hell, even political prisoners get their day in kangaroo court. We have not even put up show trials for these men.
That understates the case. "Cleared for release" means that the process has already determined that they do not need to be held. Its, arguably, worse than not giving him a chance to prove that he shouldn't be held -- we've already determined that he shouldn't be held and are holding him anyway.
(And Aamer's case is particularly bad, even among Guatanamo cases, because, unlike the cases of detainees where no country is willing to accept them on release, Aamer has legal status as a non-citizen resident of the UK and the UK has repeatedly requested his release by the US.)
Here's the thing. I don't even disagree that the U.S. has badly handled the situation with the Guantanamo detainees. It's valid to detain prisoners during a war, but they should be repatriated after hostilities cease. You have to acknowledge that the U.S. is in a rough spot, because 30% of detainees returned to Afghanistan started fighting again against the U.S., and for many of the detainees, the home countries didn't want them back. And the U.S. states were totally unwilling to even host trials for the detainees on their soil, particularly Virginia where many of those trials would have been held. But there were probably better ways to handle the detainees.
However, this has nothing to do with the comparison between the U.S. and Stalinist Russia. The latter detained Russian citizens because of their political opposition to the regime. Those are political prisoners. Or, for other examples, people like Nelson Mandela, who was imprisoned for political opposition to the South African government.
There is an enormous difference between a country's internal political institutions and its shortcomings in the conduct of war on foreign soil with respect to foreigners. You can't just pretend these are the same thing. This is a distinction that American law takes very seriously: John Walker Lindh was recognized as an American, despite being captured with Afghan fighters in Afghanistan, was never held in Guantanamo, and was given a criminal trial in the U.S.
Trials and due process are protections that Americans are entitled to when they are accused of crimes. Foreigners suspected of making war against the U.S. and captured on foreign soil are simply not entitled to these things. It's not a "crime" to wage war against the U.S., it's not something that falls within the jurisdiction of criminal courts. It's something that falls within the sovereign right of a nation to defend itself against foreign attackers. The rules and standards of conduct are totally different.
> Trials and due process are protections that Americans are entitled to when they are accused of crimes.
Trials and due process are protections that everyone, regardless of citizenship status, are afforded in this country. If you disagree, check out how many illegal immigrants are currently incarcerated.
I fundamentally disagree with your assessment. Terrorism is in fact a crime, with plenty of statutes covering exactly what it is. Declaring a war on terror is like declaring a war on communism, when does it end? Where do the battles take place?
I am honestly trying to wrap my mind around your position here. Are you saying that you think we should be able to lock people up -- potentially forever -- on the word of people who were compensated financially for turning over "terrorists?" How can you reconcile that with anything the US supposedly stands for?
Poor treatment of prisoners of war is not equivalent to imprisonment of political dissenters.
Many people at Guantanamo Bay were not captured on any battlefield. Unless of course you define the whole world as a battlefield (as the White House does). That has the unfortunate consequence of transforming citizens into terrorists suspects too and suspending their rights.
