The Closure of Guantanamo Bay

[Cocytus]

So because I'm a polemicist who enjoys stirring the pot...

President Barack Obama has promised to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay within a year. The camp currently holds 270 detainees who would need to be either repatriated, transferred to US prisons or sent to other countries.

The Points:

Pro Closure:
Gitmo is a recruiting tool.

It is ineffective as a means of bringing terrorists to judgement. Of over 700 people brought to the camp since Middle East operations began, only three have ever been convicted. The majority were released.

Waterboarding is torture. It meets the legal definition as per former Bush administration official Daniel Levin (who had the procedure performed on himself) and Gitmo trial overseer Susan Crawford, who acknowledged that "we tortured (Mohammad) al-Qahtani. His treatment met the legal definition of torture." She has decided not to refer his case for prosecution.

The camp is tainted by violations of domestic and international law. The US Supreme Court, in Hamdam v Rumsfeld, ruled that military commissions violated both Uniform Code and the Geneva Conventions. SCOTUS further ruled the subsequent Military Commissions Act of 2006 unconstitutional in Boumediene v Bush.

Anti-Closure
Gitmo is unattractive, sure, but necessary. This is war, and war is ugly. Idealists should get used to it.

The potential release of terror suspects presents an unacceptable risk to Americans. If recidivism occurs among released detainees, more American lives will be at risk, and possibly lost.

Waterboarding is not torture. The US Military includes waterboarding as part of its Survival/Resistance/Escape training. It does not present an immediate danger to the lives of detainees, and is a useful tool in the gathering of crucial intelligence to protect American lives.

The Constitution should only apply to citizens of the United States. It should not protect those who actively seek to destroy the country.



I'm curious what everyone thinks, and of course, feel free to add any additional points you can think of.

[ILikeDeathNote]

The problem never was the existence of GitMo, the problem was the fair treatment of detainees at GitMo. Closing GitMo is an overreaction due to the logistical concerns of where to place the detainees now. Instead, Obama should have directed conditions to improve until he and other Democratic party leaders are satisfied, then make operations at GitMo as transparent as practical to show the world these improved conditions.

Participation of key Democratic party leaders would have been key to overseeing this. Obama or even Pelosi (though I don't know how much this falls under the purview of Congress as opposed to the Executive Office) could have sent a personal representative to oversee these changes.

EDIT: Mr. Orugahn also brought up a point: some method of legal representation to ensure that the detainees are indeed guilty or innocent, although I would expect long delays given the resources available.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Anti-Closure
Gitmo is unattractive, sure, but necessary. This is war, and war is ugly. Idealists should get used to it.

Necessary like how? Has it even proved insufficient, beyond being an obvious source of miscontent and just a good card to raise tensions worldwide, and above all in Middle East, for no good?

The potential release of terror suspects presents an unacceptable risk to Americans. If recidivism occurs among released detainees, more American lives will be at risk, and possibly lost.

I'm curious about the recidivism claim. Are the people in this camp even proved guilty once?
Just asking.

Secondly, if they're out, do you think they'll have the will to retaliate? or the means?

Thirdly, like any prison, they tend to create tougher criminals. What would be a good reason to keep those people inside, however, shouldn't overshadow its problems and above all, if it was legit to have such a torture camp from get go.

Waterboarding is not torture. The US Military includes waterboarding as part of its Survival/Resistance/Escape training. It does not present an immediate danger to the lives of detainees, and is a useful tool in the gathering of crucial intelligence to protect American lives.

Hot wax, nipple piercing, electro-anal sex play, whipping, etc. All that is torture. Waterboarding is torture as well, although not related to sexual practices. Point is, it's not because you're willing, or partially willing to undergo torture as part of your "training" that it stops being torture. :)

The Constitution should only apply to citizens of the United States. It should not protect those who actively seek to destroy the country.

Fortunately, there's more to the world than the Constitution. Human Rights, Geneva, interdiction to use chemical weapons, etc.
All violated.

I'm curious what everyone thinks, and of course, feel free to add any additional points you can think of.

I'm also curious about those floating prisons (prison ships) (there seems to be quite a good number of testimonies about them), and Afghanistan's bigger camp, Bagram, for which there's no plan of closure, especially considering the US' will to strike half that country, after emptying Irak and leaving the country in total ruins (although third guy on the ladder, Robert Gates, seem to disagree with the departure from Irak).

[PunkMaister]

The truth is if you ask where have all the Detainees that have been freed from there ended up, the answer is right back to committing terrorist acts worldwide. So there closing Gitmo accomplishes nothing. What should have been done is to prosecute the detainees and not just warehouse them only to be released years or so latter as if they did nothing and nothing ever happened.

[Cocytus]

Provide the proof for this assertion, Punkmaister. The latest Department of Defense report states 61 released detainees have gone back to terrorism, and over 400 people have been released from the camp. 61 is not "all" of 400.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/ ... JX20090113

So the truth is not "all" of them have gone back to terrorism. This man has gone back to a desk job:

http://detainees.mcclatchydc.com/detainees/10

Worse still, some of them may not have had any reason to be there in the first place:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 02107.html

A case of mistaken identity. I am not content to just sit back and trust that the goverment is "keeping me safe." I'm sorry, I won't buy it. Prove their guilt, or let them go. And for those we do prove guilty, by all means, let them have the maximum allowable sentence. No mercy should be given to terrorists, provided we know them to be terrorists.

[PunkMaister]

61 terrorists released back into the world to commit mass murder and mayhem on an even grander scale yes, great accomplishment releasing them. And didn't you read what I posted? I did they they should all be prosecuted and not just warehoused which is what Gitmo did. Obama is not interested in prosecuting anyone though he just wants to close the darn place to please the leftards...

[Cocytus]

And didn't you read what I posted?

What should they all be prosecuted with? You assume that everyone at Gitmo is there because they are terrorists, and it isn't the case. The ones at Gitmo who ARE terrorists should absolutely be prosecuted, in a court of law, not an (unconstitutional as per Boumediene V. Bush) military tribunal, with access to the evidence against them (Boumediene V. Bush again.) The ones who are NOT terrorists should be released. Or should we prosecute them with just being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or having a similar name to a terror suspect? "ALL" is the part of your logic I take issue with, because not "ALL" of them are terrorists.

The government must review all the evidence it has against the remaining detainees. Those whom it has sufficient evidence to prosecute, by all means prosecute them. Those against whom there is not sufficient evidence, or no evidence at all, let them go.

[Who is like God arbour]

Usually, I would agree with ILikeDeathNote: »The problem never was the existence of GitMo, the problem was the fair treatment of detainees at GitMo.«

I think, that all detainees are to be treated like alleged criminals or convicts.

• • • • Because that's what they have to be, to be detained rightly: either alleged criminals or convicts on the one side or prisoners of war on the other side.
        
        But, although the US government was (and is) speaking of a war against terror, there is no such thing. Wars can only be waged against states, not against criminal organizations. It is irrelevant what such a organization has done. It stays a criminal organization and has done criminal acts and has to be prosecuted. Neither US law nor international law are knowing the possibility of war against something other than states. The outcome of this is, that the detainees of Guantanamo Bay can't be prisoners of war.
        
        And because there is no third classification, and a fortiori not one, in which they have no rights and can be treated like animals before their guilt is determined by a criminal court at all, they have to be alleged criminals - or, if their guilt is determined by a criminal court, they are convicts and are to be treated as such.

That means, that it is relative irrelevant, if they are brought to a federal prison on the continent or stay in the federal prison on Guantanamo Bay.

But one has to remember that, as long as they are not convicted, they are merely in remand. But the detention of suspects before a conviction is usually only possible as long as there is a high probability, that there is a reasonable prospect of conviction.

The problem now is, that there is no such prospect because elemental procedural laws were violated. Not one single detainee can be convicted by a criminal court.

The correct conclusion now has to be, that they not only have to be let free, but that they all are getting a compensation for their unlawfully detention and treatment.

And yes: even those, from which it is known, that they have committed terrorist acts and would probably go back to committing terrorist acts worldwide.

That's the price, a constitutional state (a "state of law" or a "state of rights") has to pay for the lapse of his government.

You have to remember: if it comes to that, it is not the fault of the detainees of Guantanamo Bay, but the fault of the former government of the US. If Bush and co. wouldn't have ignored national and international laws and elemental human rights, the deteinees of Guantanamo Bay could still be convicted by a criminal court. That is now impossible and to let them free is the only remaining possibility, the judiciary of a constitutional state has.

What would be the alternative? To detain them forever - or kill them - without a conviction?