THE NEWS SAYS
The plan does nothing to address the fact that the detainees are being held indefinitely without trial.
As a presidential candidate in 2008, Sen. Barack Obama vowed that he would close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay on taking the White House. The rest is sad history. As President, Obama has struggled for seven years to fulfill his promise while largely failing to expedite detainee trials by military tribunals and struggling to release what prisoners can be let go to other countries.
On Tuesday, Obama began what is surely a lastditch effort to convince Congress that the remaining detainees should be imprisoned on U.S. soil. He called Gitmo a symbol of America at its worst, one that is “counterproductive to our fight against terrorists” and “outright contrary to our values.”
More counterproductive is his elevation of a prison complex located on U.S.-controlled land in Cuba into a stain on America’s honor.
Whatever happened in the past, the place is now only a set of high-security buildings holding the last 91 of the 799 men captured abroad in post-9/11 warring. As prisons go, the conditions are good and inmate rights are vigilantly watched.
No rule says they must stay there 15 years after the attack. The obstacle is a Republican-controlled Congress that objects to Obama’s terror policies and raises understandable security fears.
No representative will risk letting the worst terrorists inhabit a prison in his or her district — especially when having valid grounds to ask: What’s the point? Bringing the remaining prisoners into the U.S. would change little for many of them, ac- cording to lawyers representing detainees.
Essentially, Obama is asking Congress to create Gitmo North with the important distinction that the government would try some prisoners in civilian courts, while hauling many through military tribunals that are attacked by civil libertarians.
As Wells Dixon of the Center for Constitutional Rights put it on Twitter, “I’m speechless. @POTUS admits #Guantanamo military trials have failed, but closure plan would import to USA.”
If he can find takers, Obama envisions reducing Guantanamo’s headcount to 56 by sending 35 detainees to other countries under supposed guarantees that they will not again take up arms against America. Regardless, many already released have.
As the population continues to dwindle, the President will have an increasingly difficult time exporting prisoners, because he is fast approaching having only a collection of the most dangerous Islamist fighters.
Charges against seven, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Muhammed, are pending in interminably slow military tribunals. Now, way too belatedly, Obama seeks to speed the process.
At the same time, the military has judged other prisoners to be clear and present dangers and is holding them despite evidentiary problems that preclude a military or civilian trial.
Read: This commander-in-chief has properly authorized indefinite imprisonment of those who can neither be tried nor released. Closing Gitmo would do nothing to change that.