The Case of Murat Kurnaz

Yesterday, the state-run Chinese news agency announced that the police had a Tibetan monk in custody who’d confessed to inciting the recent separatist violence on direct orders from the Dalai Lama. The name of the monk wasn’t made public, nor were the charges made against him. Ho-hum. Sounds like business as usual in a totalitarian dictatorship. Right?

Now watch this 13-minute 60 Minutes piece.

Or read this summary: A 19-year old German-born Turk named Murat Kurnaz was pulled out of a bus by a Pakistani cop in the fall of 2001. He was handed over to the United States in return for a $3,000 bounty. He was held by the American military at prisons in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, where he was made to inhale while his head was dunked into water. He was electrocuted. He was suspended by his arms for five straight days. He was attended to by doctors who were present not to minister to his wounds, but to certify that he could handle even more physical abuse.

Six months into his incarceration, a secret U.S. military memo confirmed that he was innocent. The German authorities concurred. But he was held and tortured for another 3 ½ years, and was released only after the German Chancellor made a personal appeal to the President. In total, an innocent man was held for almost 5 years by an American justice system that operates on the presumption of guilt, and is accountable to no one.

But who to blame? Not Pakistan, where $3,000 will trump justice every time. Not the American military, where volunteer personnel are trained to fight, not to moonlight as interrogators. And certainly not Mr. Kurnaz, who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

No, the blame rests with two parties. First, President George W. Bush, whose sloppy command of history’s lessons, indifference to the value of a human life, and inability to admit mistakes translated into a callous disregard for the principles enshrined in our Constitution. His underlings simply took this indifference and ran with it. Little wonder that his speeches touting liberty and freedom just don’t seem to gain much traction amongst the masses that toil under evil dictators. Yet our President remains blind to the fact that his record stands in almost comedic contrast to the prepared text in his teleprompter.

And the blame rests with the American electorate. Fifty-one percent of us voted to return the President to office in 2004. That the horrific prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib (which was made public in April 2004) happened under his watch should’ve been reason enough to send him back to Crawford. Yet the majority chose a man who hides his incompetence through bluster, his intellectual laziness behind slogans and lapel pins. Shame on us for re-electing a leader who handed our morally bankrupt enemies the ability to claim cultural equivalence with America.

Now imagine you are the Chinese Foreign Minister, and you’re on the phone with the American Secretary of State, who’s calling to protest the treatment of the Tibetan people. How easily and succinctly could you shame her into silence?