Guantanamo's Last Days

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright Dec. 20, 2009
All Rights Reserved.                    

              When former President George W. Bush ordered Operation Enduring Freedom Oct. 7, 2001 to topple Afghanistan’s Taliban government, only three short weeks after Sept. 11, the U.S. military began plucking its enemies off the battlefield.  Few people asked then whether remnants of the Taliban, or various Islamic insurgent groups, had anything to do with planning and directing Sept. 11.  When Taliban’s one-eyed Mullah Mohammed Omar refused to surrender notorious international terrorist Osama bin Laden, Bush decided to end Omar’s seven-year reign.  Various Taliban and Islamic jihadist fighters were killed or captured during Operation Enduring Freedom, prompting Bush in 2002 to open the prison known as “Camp X-Ray” or “Gitmo” on land leased to the U.S. Marine base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  Special legal machinations circumvented the Geneva Convention.

            Defining Afghanistan prisoners and “enemy combatants” or “battlefield detainees” offshore at Guantanmo Bay enabled Bush to circumvent rights and treatment under the U.S. Constitution or Geneva Convention, enabling the Pentagon to hold prisoners without rights indefinitely.  Campaigning in 2008, then Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) promised to shutter Gitmo, a prison he considered a black eye on U.S. foreign policy.  Bush and his former Vice President Dick Cheney insisted that Gitmo was needed for dangerous terrorists responsible for Sept. 11.  Only one some small problem:  None of the original prisoners had anything to do with the attacks of Sept. 11.  Only through the help of Pakistan’s ISI intelligence service did Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and key planners Ramzi Binalshibh and Ramzi Yousef get captured in 2002.

            Defining prisoners of war as “battlefield detainees” or “enemy combatants” and incarcerating them offshore at Guantanmo Bay skirted the U.S. Constitution and Geneva Convention, allowing the Bush administration to use “enhanced” interrogation techniques, defined by Obama as torture.  Only Jan. 29, 2009, nine days after Barack’s inauguration, he ended the military’s plans to conduct tribunals at Guantanamo Bay.  On Dec. 15, Barack signed a presidential directive officially closing Guantanamo Bay and transferring the remaining 215 inmates to the unused Thomson Correctional Facility in Illinois.  Over objections of the Republican Party, Barack fulfilled a campaign promise to rid Guantanamo’s blight on U.S. foreign policy.  Transferring remaining prisoners to U.S. soil will change prisoners’ rights, forcing the White House and Pentagon to redefine their Constitutional status,

               Republicans argue that bringing terrorist on U.S. soil threatens national security.  They forget, or choose to forget, that most of Guanatanamo Bay prisoners were not directly or indirectly connected with Sept. 11. They also forget Thomson Correctional Facility will provide comparable protection to Camp X-Ray.  They also forget that Guantanamo Bay has served as a global symbol of U.S. torture, since the Bush administration publicly acknowledged the use of “enhanced” interrogation techniques. Since Atty. Gen. Eric Holder announced Nov. 18 that he intended to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other Sept. 11 terrorists in Manhattan’s U.S. District Court, it raised more questions about terrorists’ rights.  White House officials must decide whether their afforded rights under the U.S. Constitution or Geneva Convention to fairly mete of appropriate justice.

             Closing down Guantanamo Bay is a good first start but doesn’t answer the basic question of how to define Guantanamo Bay prisoners.  There’s no point, like the Bush administration insisted, to reinventing the wheel, continuing to call prisoners-of-war “enemy combatants” or “battlefield detainees.”  If prisoners were picked up in military combat, they must carry the definition of “prisoner-of-war,” affording them rights under the Geneva Convention.  If that’s the case, Holder should reconsider his decision to try prisoners-of-war in U.S. District Court, allowing the military its appropriate rights.  There’s no reason a military court couldn’t handle terrorists’ trials, concluding with deportations, incarcerations or, if appropriate, the death penalty.  Trying Mohammed in District Court and giving him Constitutional rights sets a dangerous precedent for the war on terror.

            Blighting U.S. foreign policy since 2002, it’s high time for Guantanmo Bay to shut its doors.  Housing Camp X-Ray prisoners at Illinois’ Thomson Correction Facility opens the door for the White House to get its terrorist policy right.  If the White House intends to afford Guantanamo Bay prisoners’ rights under the Geneva Convention, it needs to urgently reconsider Holder’s decision to try prisoners as civilians in U.S. District Court.  Redefining Camp X-Ray’s remaining 215 prisoners as prisoners-of-war put any and all legal proceedings into military jurisdiction.  Staging show-trials in Lower Manhattan only further blights the U.S. justice system, defeating the purpose of closing Guantanamo Bay.  More grandstanding in Manhattan gives the U.S. government another black eye, defeats the purpose of closing Guantanamo Bay and brings the U.S. more international disgrace.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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