06/20/11 – Karen Greenberg – The Scott Horton Show

Alright y'all, it's Antiwar Radio.
Now I'm happy to welcome back to the show Karen J. Greenberg.
She's the Executive Director of the New York University Center on Law and Security, author of The Least Worst Place, Guantanamo's First 100 Days, editor of The Torture Debate in America, and a frequent contributor to TomDispatch.com.
And now this piece is at TomDispatch.com and it's also running under Tom's name at Antiwar.com, How to End the War on Terror, and in fact, of course, her part of the article, that's his intro, and her part of the article is called Business as Usual on Steroids.
The Obama Administration Doubles Down on the War on Terror.
Welcome back to the show, Karen.
How are you?
I'm good.
Thanks for having me back.
It's great to have you here, and sorry we just have a short time to talk about this, but I was wondering if you could, you know, first of all make your case about this doubling down and then see if we can go through your steps for how to go ahead and call this thing off like Tom talks about in the title there.
Sure.
I mean, basically what the article's about is that instead we did not, have not used the occasion of the killing of bin Laden as a moment to think about whether or not, and if so, how this is a game changer for the war on terror.
And what I'd really like to see is for a group in Washington, a commission, a working task force, whatever, to get together to consider what this means for domestic policy, for foreign policy, for the threat of Al Qaeda as we understand it, and for whether or not we are entering a phase, which we've been in somewhat anyway prior to the recent Middle East events, of managed risk when it comes to terrorism rather than a war, and to really understand what that means for changing our policy.
All right.
Now, it seemed to me, and not just me, apparently a lot of people picked up on this, that, hey, okay, Osama bin Laden's dead, we can call the rest of the war off if we want to, and perhaps further even that, hey, you know what?
Maybe what we really should have been doing was using SEAL Team 6, at the most, cops when we can, to nip this thing in the bud, and maybe this war on terrorism could have been over by summer 2002.
Well, you know, it's always easy in hindsight to say that.
Nah, whatever, I was saying that since December of 2001 on the air, but anyway.
It is a fact, at least, you know, it seems this way to me, that getting bin Laden has always been important, and the sooner we could have accomplished it, the better, and it does make you wonder if Obama was able to do this in the short time he's in office, why it hadn't happened earlier.
Having said that, I think it's really important to note this moment, and instead of doing that, what the country has done, both the President and Congress and other pundits is to, and other states persons actually, to talk about how we need to do more of the same, intensify our efforts, whether it's with predator drones, whether it's with our Libya policy, whether it's with passing an extended and expanded version of the authorization to use military force, whether it's passing the Patriot Act, about which there were severe civil liberties concerns.
There have been a number of things that have happened since the death of bin Laden that are basically saying, look, the war on terror is not just over, but we're going to continue it in an intensified way of what we've been doing in the past.
To me, this seems precipitous and irresponsible, if you haven't sat down and thought about whether or not this is a game changer, which I think many would say it is.
Well, and it seems like public opinion is solidifying, I was talking with Glenn Greenwald a little bit about this before, how we've really had pretty high numbers of people in the polls against, say, for example, the Afghanistan war.
I don't think people know we've still got troops in Iraq, but anyway, but it seems like now they're really starting to mean it again, you know, in general, the general public in a way that's putting a lot of pressure on both parties.
I think that's right.
I mean, I think in terms of Afghanistan, that's the case, because to really justify risking American lives at this point in Afghanistan, I'm not sure what the rationale would be.
And I didn't write about that in my piece, because I tended to stick to matters more directly linked to the rhetoric of the war on terror and the issues of detention and interrogation.
Certainly, the immediate pullout of Afghanistan would be one of the prime considerations of such a task force.
All right, well, let's see if we can go through this list, because I think it's pretty comprehensive and is good food for thought at the very least here.
Sure.
I mean, the list is basically comprised of either the first thing on the list is, of course, understanding what this term that keeps popping up over and over rhetorically and in legislation of the end of hostilities, the cessation of hostilities, whatever phrase you want to use, to understand that if you were going to talk about indicators or criteria for the end of hostilities, you would have the death of bin Laden, presumably as one of them.
But actually, what it is, is we are in an endless war, as many have said.
And this is not a war that is going to end with an end of hostilities.
And we need to make that very clear to the American public.
Policymakers have to be honest about this so that we can move on to a phase which is, as I said, about managed risk and not about war.
So that was the first issue that I thought could be addressed.
The second one is probably one that is an easy one to guess I would have said, and that is the release of John Walker Lynd from prison.
John Walker Lynd was the American, I think he was in his early 20s at the time, who was captured on the battlefield of Afghanistan in a prisoner uprising who had been with the Taliban, who had joined them prior to 9-11, and who was accused of many things, none of which he was convicted of.
He pled to weapons possession and to associating with the Taliban, basically.
But he was more of a symbolic sentencing than anything else.
He was in the same place as the first casualty in the war on terror, a CIA officer by the name of Mike Spann.
And it was a symbolic and, I think, over-the-top 20-year sentence.
And really, I think at this point, given the sort of parameters of how we punish and indict people in the war on terror, it was an egregious over-sentencing or whatever.
And I think we should consider releasing him for a lot of reasons that would indicate to the American public that we can exercise wise and compassionate judgment about those who threaten us and those who do not threaten us.
So that's, I think that's something, as a symbolic measure, more than anything else.
And that leads into, certainly, the closing of Guantanamo Bay, finally, as you say.
Yeah.
I don't say the closing of Guantanamo Bay because I think it's, I'm more interested in what we're going to do with these detainees that are what are going to keep it open, which is those we are going to hold in indefinite detention.
That means that we're not going to try to convict them and that we're not going to release them for whatever reason.
I think that what hasn't been done and what the president alluded to in his March statement, which is his most recent statement on Guantanamo, was the idea that there is a possibility of a rehabilitation program for detainees that we don't have evidence on and that who we don't want to release.
And I think we need to do that.
We need to consider what that would entail.
The Saudis have one.
The Indonesians have one.
I'm sorry, Karen.
We're all out of time.
I just want to mention, your number five here, of course, is turning prosecution back over to the DOJ from CIA and military, of course.
That's very important.
Exactly.
Everyone, it's Karen J. Greenberg, the executive director of the New York University Center of Law and Security.
Thanks very much.
Antiwar.com today, y'all.
Heard a new piece.