I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
Marine Maj. Gen. Michael Lehnert is retiring after 36 years of duty and is about to return home to his native Michigan. But before he does, the man who set up the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in 2001 and established the initial rules for treating prisoners held there is speaking out against what happened after he was moved on to another assignment.
In an interview with the L.A. Times, Lehnert argues that the rules he initially established, which were in line with the Geneva Conventions, were vital to maintaining America’s moral standing in the world. Once torture and abuse were introduced, he says he began to argue that the facility should be closed down.
“I think we lost the moral high ground,” Lehnert said. “For those who do not think much of the moral high ground, that is not that significant.
“But for those who think our standing in the international community is important, we need to stand for American values. You have to walk the walk, talk the talk.”
In her recent book, “The Least Worst Place: Guantanamo’s First 100 Days,” Karen Greenberg, executive director of the Center on Law and Security at New York University’s School of Law, suggests that history would have been much different if Lehnert’s approach had prevailed.
“Certainly the reputation of the United States would not have been damaged as it has been by the unabashed pushing aside of law,” she wrote.
As outlined by Greenberg, one of the biggest differences between Lehnert and his successors at Guantanamo was over the use of harsh interrogation techniques.
“I think you need to step back and say, ‘As a country, is this something we want to do?’ ” Lehnert said.
Lehnert had little patience for the argument that it was okay to mistreat detainees because they would mistreat our people. “If we treat them that way [as they might treat U.S. prisoners],” he said, “then we become them.”
Ironically, Lehnert will be spending his retirement in Michigan not far from the Standish prison that is under consideration as a replacement facility to hold those detainees.
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