Suspected terrorist a fan of ‘The Colbert Report’
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There is an interesting New Yorker article posted today on the detainee cases the Obama administration is going to have to deal with. The article talks about the difficulties in balancing legitimate national security concerns against individual rights and due process, focusing on the story of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri (detained since 2001 as an alleged al Qaeda sleeper agent) as one example.
It’s a sobering article overall, but this portion, describing Marri’s status following a 2005 lawsuit that led to the improvement of his detention conditions, caught my eye and made me smile a bit (my emphasis added):
The Hard Cases
Will Obama institute a new kind of preventive detention for terrorist suspects?
by Jane Mayer
February 23, 2009. . .
Marri’s conditions have so improved that his lawyers jokingly refer to him these days as “the Emir of the S.H.U.”—the high-security wing of the brig is known as the Special Housing Unit. He remains the sole prisoner in the wing, but he now has the regular use of three cells, which he refers to as his “executive suite.” One cell contains a memory-foam mattress. Another houses a personal library containing hundreds of volumes. The third contains alcohol-free cleaning supplies, in compliance with his Muslim religious needs. When visitors come, he sees them in an upper-tier room that he calls his “summer chalet.” He also has exclusive access to a thousand-square-foot dayroom equipped with a treadmill and an elliptical machine. Officially barred from watching the evening news, Marri has become a devotee of Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart—whom he calls “that Jewish guy.”
. . .
It’s nice to see that the appeal of Stephen and Jon can penetrate even the walls of detention cells.
The article also quotes friend of the show Neal Katyal (a two-time guest) on his suggestion that the Obama administration create a “national security court” to deal with these detainees. I’m honestly not sure I can get behind that idea; I’m afraid it still leaves too much to the “trust us, we won’t abuse our authority” school of government … and I don’t have a whole lot of faith that the Obama administration will live up to the hopes/expectations of civil rights proponents (consider his flipping on FISA during the campaign, his embrace of the Bush administration’s “state secrets” stance, and his most recent announcement that detainees being held at Bagram do not have the legal right even to challenge their detentions). I believe that the existing justice system, given the proper safeguards, is capable of handling these cases. Still, it’s an interesting read, and it’s an issue that deserves a lot of attention.
As food for thought on the detainee problem, I leave you with this, the Guantánamo Bay entry of one of my favorite recurring segments, “Formidable Opponent”:
Tip of the hat to loudfan, who mentioned the Fresh Air interview with Mayer that led me to this article.
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9 Comments
February 23rd, 2009 at 3:22 pm
My brother told me about this last night.
I wonder if he’s a fan of Gitmo Elmo
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February 23rd, 2009 at 4:07 pm
interesting…
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February 23rd, 2009 at 4:22 pm
See, all these guys needed all this time was a little political satire.
Stephen should be saying, ‘Nobel Peace Prize, please!”
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February 23rd, 2009 at 6:48 pm
It looks like they have a halfway decent case against him for funding terrorism and some related crimes (credit card fraud). So charge him, and if you can’t make the case, you can still send him back to Qatar.
In the meantime, sure, treat him well, especially considering his poor treatment for the past seven years. Seven years! Even if he’s convicted, that would probably count for most of the jail term.
Stephen and Jon are, in a way, wonderful ambassadors. They’re often the voice of sane Americans, in spite of the media insanity and political “debate” that may shape people’s opinion of the US. Jon on Israel has been particularly refreshing.
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February 23rd, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Yeah, I haven’t delved into the details of the government’s case against Marri, but there does seem to be a fair amount of substance to it. Nonetheless, I’m not sure why so many people are so convinced that our existing legal system would fall short of the task of trying him. Not knowing the details, I certainly concede the possibility that his case *is* somehow “extraordinary” and that there’s a justifiable reason to have held Marri for as long as they have, but I simply can’t get behind the notion of creating an entire parallel system of “justice” to deal with certain cases based on nothing more than the government’s say-so. This system of indefinite detention is simply *wrong* in my view.
And absolutely, we should not torture, EVER. The things that have been done in the name of this country’s “security” make me sick. I’ve done the writing my representatives and funding the ACLU (etc.) thing, but, man … it really doesn’t help with the guilt.
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February 23rd, 2009 at 8:11 pm
It’s funny and bizarre to me that after many years of Jon Stewart et. al. saying “Oh, people don’t use TDS as their primary news source, because you have to be familiar with the news to get the jokes,” that the example that disproves this argument would be a Guantanamo detainee.
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February 23rd, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Well, technically he’s in a brig in South Carolina, but it’s a fair point.
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February 23rd, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Has anyone been there for a taping with Formidable Opponent? I’ve always wondered exactly how they do the mirroring for the segment?
BTW, that was a great clip!
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February 25th, 2009 at 8:40 pm
I haven’t been there, but people who have confirm that he films the whole thing straight through, standing in front of a green screen with a special tie that works like a green screen. Every time Stephen flips to the other side of the argument, the camera flips his image and the background and tie color change.
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