Attempts to Spin Guantanamo Detentions
Unlikely to Win Hearts and Minds
 
by Gene Grabowski
 
The Pentagon has just dispatched 20 members of the Wisconsin National Guard’s 112th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment to Cuba to fight on another front in the Bush administration’s War on Terror. Their mission: To turn the tide in the battle for hearts and minds over the six-year imprisonment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

Detachment Commander Rick Morehouse defined the goals of the PR offensive by saying “the media of the world and families need to know what’s going on right now, not what happened six or seven years ago… the prisoners are being treated very well.” Sadly, this new offensive is likely doomed to fail, as its planners are fighting a battle that was lost a long time ago.

 

The U.S. military is essentially inviting the world to watch a fight it cannot win.

First, the administration continues to misidentify the central issue. It’s true that allegations of physical and mental abuse carried out by interrogators and the fact that at least four detainees committed suicide in one year – tragedies that a State Department official coldly characterized as “a good PR move” – have damaged America’s image around the world.

But the real point isn’t the treatment of the detainees. It’s the fact that the United States has locked up thousands of detainees for more than six years without providing the same due process that America affords its own worst criminals and even provided to Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic (a.k.a. “The Butcher of Belgrade”), and the Nazis at Nuremberg. In this regard, there is no difference between what “what’s going on right now” and “what happened six or seven years ago.”

You see, it doesn’t really matter whether the prisoners are being abused at Guantanamo or being kept under house arrest at the Four Seasons Hotel in Miami. The question is why the United States continues to deny the fundamental right of habeas corpus for prisoners held under U.S. law.

Ignoring this question will only reinforce the already firmly rooted perception that the military is woefully out-of-touch with the will of the people and almost certainly aid America’s enemies.
 
Two years ago, the administration embarked on a similar PR surge designed to show that Guantanamo prisoners were being treated well. During that campaign, the Pentagon flew several members of Congress to the prison to sample the food the detainees were eating and examine the well-lit and ventilated cinderblock cells in which they lived. After their one-day visits, many of the lawmakers declared the conditions perfectly satisfactory. But they got to go home the next day – safe in the knowledge that their legal rights were protected. The headlines lasted a few days and were largely forgotten.

For the Pentagon’s PR professionals, this new PR offensive is a classic case of too little, too late.

Nearly every major newspaper and TV network around the globe has editorialized against the Administration’s Guantanamo policy. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s assertion that “If it were up to me, I would close Guantanamo not tomorrow, but today,” has been echoed throughout America and the globe.

With this new effort, the U.S. military is essentially inviting the world to watch a fight it cannot win. By calling more attention to Guantanamo at a time when the underlying reality contradicts their assertions, the Pentagon is merely helping its adversaries make their case.
 
As a wise communications counselor once said: You cannot talk your way out a situation you’ve acted yourself into. The military’s PR gun simply won’t fire without the right ammunition; and that ammunition can only be forged from a change in policy. It can’t be generated with a warmed-over PR strategy.