But, just how hard does the Pentagon and the Obama Administration plan to work to close Guantanamo? According to Byron York, in 2009, the Senate canceled $80 million to fund the relocation of Guantanamo detainees. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye and Republican Sen. James Inhofe slid a provision into a war appropriations bill that made it so "none of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this act may be used to transfer, release, or incarcerate any individual who was detained as of May 19, 2009, at Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to or within the United States."
In March of this year, President Obama announced he would restart military commissions for Guantanamo detainees and no longer push to secure civilian trials for the detainees in the United States. He also announced "a new process for continuing to hold those detainees not charged or convicted but deemed too dangerous to be free."
Despite the fact that he had pledged to close Guantanamo by January 2010 days after his inauguration, he defended military commissions saying they "ensure our security and our values are strengthened." But, these announcements virtually ensured that Guantanamo would continue to stay open.
Where are these detainees going to go when not being tried? And, if they are not being given civilian trials, what makes anyone think they will be resettled in civilian prisons? They would have to be held at military prisons. And, what is the likelihood that they would be resettled in prisons on the US mainland if there is no political will to support trying detainees in cities like New York?
The Obama Administration currently has no public campaign to close the Guantanamo prison beyond the words that are printed in this statement. It is not advocating vigorously for the closure. It is much harder for it to defend the prison's closure than it is to defend it staying fully operational.
The Pentagon is not suggesting the release of this information will endanger lives. The Times and other news organizations are already spinning the reports as information that shows what alleged terrorists were up to on September 11 and after before they were seized or captured. Thus, the release of the information could, if spun correctly by media, help the government defend continuing the "war on terror." It could obscure revelations on the flawed process of assessing whether a detainee is dangerous or not, whether a detainee has information that can be used to capture leaders of al Qaeda, whether a detainee deserved to be transferred to Guantanamo, etc. [In fact, it appears this is what US media is doing: focusing on the dangerous detainees rather than the teenagers and the elderly detainees or the "Mickey Mouse prisoners" that were detained and never posed any threat whatsoever.]
The disclosure of information will hurt the government not because this information was "obtained illegally" but because, like many releases from WikiLeaks, it shows us the truth of what has been going on with detainees right down to specific details about each detainee in the prison.
Contrary to Morrell's suggestion, the released documents are more likely to help spur efforts to close Guantanamo than damage the efforts. The release will force Americans to once again ask themselves why the military prison in Cuba needs to remain open. It will give human rights organizations another opportunity to force the political class in Washington to confront the prison, one the Bush Administration crafted legal justification to help prevent officials from being prosecuted for illegal or inhumane conduct.
It may not have the impact of getting the prison closed, but the transparency or disclosure is still valuable to the world. If this doesn't catalyze a second burst of will from America to close the prison, one thing is certain: It will reveal yet another inhuman and callous American reality.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
3
3
2
