I read the Op/Ed piece by Col. Davis completely differently from Glenn, and I read what Glenn cited completely differently from Glenn.

Hicks was physically, and perhaps sexually abused, before he got to Guantanamo, and possibly afterwards, but Davis is talking about post-Camp X-Ray, and is probably correct in asserting that the facility is now a modern prison similar to Leavenworth Super-Max.

As far as I can tell, Hicks doesn't seem to claim that rifle butts and pointing guns and so forth happened at Guantanamo. What he does say happen at Guantanamo post-Camp X-Ray is solitary confinement and drugging.

I'm also not sure that a guy whose father asserts that he joined LeT needs to have had a confession coerced from him, so I'm not sure Glenn has a case for that. LeT has been a banned terrorist organization since before al Qaeda was a twinkle in Zawahri's eye.

And it is not a good practice to use the word 'Tribunal' to describe the Military Commissions, it is perilously close to deliberately obscuring the very different roles and possibly different legality of two very different proceedings: the Combat Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs), and the Military Commissions (MCs).

Is it wrong, punishably a war crime, probably systematic and therefore worse, what happened to Hicks initially on his way to Guantanamo and during Camp X-Ray? Absolutely. Does it qualify as treatment in violation of our signed treaties and military confinement policies to have drugged him and kept him in isolation for 22 hours a day for months at a time? Absolutely.

The Military Commissions are set up for the sole purpose of trying alleged war criminals who also happen to be not U.S. citizens or residents at the time of capture, and have been determined to be illegal enemy combatants. The trial reported on and cited in Glenn's post had nothing to do with determining those things, only trying Hicks for crimes.

And that is where Col. Davis was most disingenuous, and how I read the whole thing in the paper this morning. Because of what the Military Commissions do, they have nothing to do with the right that the Hamdan decision found that these prisoners have under "Common" Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions to challenge the validity of their detention. That article maintains that this be done "...by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples." This judgement is done by the CSRTs. They, unlike the MCs, were not set up by an act of Congress, allow far fewer rights than those stipulated by Davis in his enumerations of the MC procedures, and have never been judged affirmatively to be a "regularly constituted court" by any American federal court.

Of the people being held at Guantanamo, there are some who are not legitimately enemy combatants. There are some who are enemy combatants and are not illegal enemy combatants. There are some who are illegal enemy combatants and are not alleged to have committed war crimes, and there are some who are illegal enemy combatants and are alleged to have committed war crimes (there may also be some who are enemy combatants but not illegal enemy combatants who are alleged to have committed war crimes, I don't know). Only the last group, those illegal enemy combatants who are alleged to have committed war crimes are possible defendants in Military Commissions. So Colonel Davis is talking about treatment that very few of the detainees will face at all, even though he is talking about the only court in Guantanamo that could be considered to be a regularly constituted court, since it was created by Congress.

Holding the non-combatants without charge is illegal. Holding combatants for the duration of a conflict, be they legal or illegal, is not illegal (unless you dispute that there is a conflict, which is reasonable), such combatants are not normally charged with crimes since they aren't criminals, they are detained combatants. Not bringing them before a regularly constituted court to challenge their status is illegal.

The people in the Office of Military Commissions generally assert that there is no inhumane treatment going on at Guantanamo, and they always speak in present tense. They also always talk only about the legitimacy of the procedures for the Military Commissions. They may very well be speaking truthfully, and some of them may not be hiding anything.

The shame and disgrace comes in discussing the past at Guantanamo, and the bogus Common Article 3 protections of the CSRTs. And there is renewed shame and disgrace if the allegations of constant solitary confinement and drugs are true. Colonel Davis should be asked to investigate such allegations and determine their veracity. If they are true, then he should ask for charges to be brought, and he should tell us what he knows.

We are judged by how we treat the worst among us. A guy who is commonly acknowledged (his father was never tortured) to have been a member of Lashkar-e-Taiba is not a nice guy. If he aided al Qaeda during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, then he really is an enemy combatant too. But it's disgusting that he was treated the way he was, and we are therefore judged by that treatment.

OK?

"George Mason University is a Virginia-based University, situated close to Washington, D.C. It is notable for hosting over 40 right-wing research centers and affiliates including the Institute for Humane Studies and the Mercatus Center."

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=George_Mason_University

You have to keep your eye on them like you do the Federalist Society, unless you like slouching towards extremism. I've had enough of that for one century, thank you.

that all people are created equal, but that not all ideas share the same privilege then the correct position on most issues will leap out. The widening of voting rights has a simple logic that aguments in favor of disenfranchisment don't share.

The greatest danger we face currently is when logic and rationality itself comes under assault.