Guantanamo’s Collateral Damage

In his January 2002 comments to then-White House Chief of Staff Gonzales on the applicability of the Geneva Conventions to detainees captured in Afghanistan, Colin Powell warned of the foreign policy consequences of abandoning long-accepted Geneva Convention practices, including:

It will reverse over a century of U.S. policy and practice in supporting the Geneva conventions and undermine the protections of the law of war for our troops, both in this specific conflict and in general.

It has a high cost in terms of negative international reaction, with the immediate adverse consequences for our conduct of foreign policy.

It will undermine public support among critical allies, making military cooperation more difficult to sustain.

I added my own thoughts about the foreign policy costs in this response to Eric Posner during last year’s Opinio Juris discussion of GWOT legal policy with John Bellinger. Today, we learn of the most recent specific cost of the Guantanomo detention policy: The withdrawal of the nomination of former Guantanamo Commander Jay Hood to head the military liason office at the US Embassy to Pakistan. As the NY Times reports here:

[T]he military has quietly canceled the assignment of General Hood, a 33-year Army veteran who was excoriated in the Pakistani news media for one of his previous jobs: commander of the United States prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

During General Hood’s command from 2004 to 2006, military authorities force-fed with tubes detainees who were engaging in hunger strikes at the Guantánamo prison, a step they justified as necessary to prevent the prisoners from committing suicide to protest their indefinite confinement. Also during General Hood’s tenure, reports that an American guard may have desecrated a Koran stirred wide protests in the Islamic world.

The decision to withdraw General Hood’s assignment has not been announced, but it appears to reflect the widening shadow that the military prison at Guantánamo is casting over American foreign policy. While the United States considers Pakistan a close ally in its counterterrorism efforts, the accounts by Pakistanis who have returned to Pakistan after being held at Guantánamo Bay have added to anti-American sentiment in the country.

Several leading Pakistani military and foreign affairs commentators denounced General Hood’s selection in recent weeks, calling on their new government to block his appointment. In interviews this week, American military officials said they had reluctantly concluded that General Hood’s effectiveness could be seriously hindered, and that his personal safety might even be at risk if he were to take up the post.

About 65 detainees at Guantánamo Bay have been repatriated to Pakistan, according to Cmdr. Pauline Storum, a military spokeswoman.

What is particularly striking is that the withdrawal came in response to public outcry (though one can assume it was echoed in official communiques) in a place where symbols can be leveraged by very dangerous elements:

So, will John McCain pick a running mate who thinks we should “double Guantanamo?” Or will he stick to his recent statement calling for its closure?