Tariq Aziz is in the headlines:
He was the urbane, English-speaking deputy to Saddam Hussein, the bespectacled face of the former Iraqi dictator’s regime, at home on the international stage.
Yet nothing had been heard or seen from Tariq Aziz since he surrendered to US forces on 24 April, 2003, as Iraq crumbled around him…
Writing in Arabic, Aziz says: ‘We are totally isolated from the world. There are 13 other detainees here, but we have no meetings or telephone contacts wth our families. I have been accused unjustly, but to date no proper investigation has taken place. It is imperative that there is intervention into our dire situation and treatment. It is totally in contradiction to international law, the Geneva Convention and Iraqi law as we know it.’
In a letter dated 7 March and written in English, Aziz states: ‘We hope that you will help us. We have been in prison for a long time and we have been cut from our families. No contacts, no phones, no letters. Even the parcels sent to us by our families are not given to us. We need a fair treatment, a fair investigation and finally a fair trial. Please help us.’
In another letter, written in Arabic and English, he says: ‘I haven’t been accused of anything,’ and ‘I have not done anything contrary to law and human behaviour.’
And the mess continues. I really don’t care if Tariq Aziz is given to the New Iraqi government and shot in public, despite my general opposition to the death penalty.
However, at some point, serious people inside our government are going to have to recognize what a muddled mess our indefinite detainment of ‘enemy combatants’ has become. Put aside the fact that it flies in the face of the fundamental sense of decency that most Amereicans have regarding the rights of accused as embodied in the US Constitution. I recognize that the determination has been made that they do not deserve those same Constitutional rigfts.
However, at some point, they deserve a right to a fair, open, and transparent hearing, the right to be charged and face their accusers publicly, and we risk continued domestic and world support of the more important war on terror if we continue to detain individuals in much the same manner that Roberto Mugabe would detain his political opposition. And before you scream at me for comparing the United States with a despicable murderous strongman, I am not. I am comparing our willingness to lock people up and seemingly forget about them, without affording them any sense of the rights of due process.
Tariq Aziz and those like him may have committed crimes for which they can never atone, crimes for which they can never adequately be punished, and it is exceptionally difficult to lose any sleep over them. However, I think it would be wise to judge the impact of this policy of permanent detainment without legal protection, particularly in light of the eroding sense of confidence in the world that the United States is on the right side of the issue.
This does not mean capitulating to the will of our enemies, and allowing them to use the systems in place in a liberal democracy as a weapon against us. It does mean that we have to recognize that our actions, however justified in the short term, are going to have long-term consequences that may damage our over-all goals- eradicating terrorism and creating a stable, peaceful, prosperous, and democratic Middle East.
*** Update ***
More here.