Guantanamo: Obama
Must 'Put an End to the Secrecy'
"Because
President Obama hasn't made a radical break with the disastrous policies of his
predecessor on Guantanamo - contrary to his promise - his protestations can
hardly be believed. At this point, the only option is to escape into the open, i.e.:
complete public disclosure."
Detainess at the Guantanamo Bay prison await processing, Jan, 11, 2002. The latest data-bomb from WikiLeaks consists of previously classified documents with details on all 'detainees' ever to inhabit the now-infamous jail, located in the legal limbo of U.S.-occupied Cuba.
No, there really is nothing
new in the secret files of detainees at Guantanamo. Most of what was just
released by the Internet whistleblowers at Wikileaks and published in newspapers
which were fed this information was in one way or another already known. At
least in outline.
But seen as a whole, these
files nonetheless are a unique testament to the incredible mess that is
Guantanamo, which was created by Republican President George W. Bush and
perpetuated by his Democratic successor, Barack Obama.
No one can serious doubt that
there have been hardened criminals among the total of 779 terror suspects who have
been locked away these past nine years at the U.S. military base in Cuba. And
no one can deny that the worst of them are still incarcerated there. For
instance, Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the mass murder and crime against humanity
on September 11, 2001, as well as several accomplices.
One hundred seventy two men
continue to be held at Guantanamo, as they are to be tried by a military
commission or because they are perceived as dangerous and therefore, are to be
held indefinitely without trial. Or because they can no longer be returned to
their native countries or third countries. Many of them have been labeled “high
security risks” because of negative experiences in the past.
Some former detainees joined
Islamist terrorist groups and committed terrorist attacks as soon as they were
released - either because they were already convinced from the outset of the
war against America, or because during their inhumane solitary confinement in
the cages of Guantanamo they developed a hatred of the U.S. After news about
the Guantanamo files broke, a heated political debate immediately broke out on U.S.
Sunday talk shows about whether too many people had been detained - or whether
too many had been released too soon.
Certainly, many of the
inmates are hardened criminals - not innocent lambs. These documents
corroborate this. Some detainees threatened their guards with revenge and death.
They glorified the holy war against the U.S. But these documents, compiled
between February 2002 and January 2009, provide information on more than 700
prisoners and document the legal and moral dilemma of the United States. They
bear witness to what was frequently blind persecution in a moment of extreme
national shock. They describe the chaos, the hate-filled zeal, the lack of
professionalism the sometimes the fatal lawlessness of the anti-terror campaign.
The documents report on the
tensions between the guards and the guarded. They document methods of confessions
exacted under torture. They document false accusations made by fellow detainees
and often flimsy evidence. Terrible fates are revealed. For instance, the
interrogators felt that after six years of torture and brutal interrogation, one
prisoner still hadn't revealed all, and there were still, “possible areas of
intelligence that could be further exploited.”
Some men fell into the hands
of Middle East terrorist hunters just because they had a ticket to Kabul in
their jacket pockets or identified themselves with forged travel documents - and
were sent on to Guantanamo. Others found their way there because no one
understood the languages they spoke, had the wrong friends or could
neither read nor write. Often, the error only revealed itself after years of captivity
- and often only after the legal system had taken action. And even then, some had
to wait an eternity to be released.
According to Barack Obama, his
government made a new assessment of the detainees and their dangerousness just
after his election two years ago. Grievances and misunderstandings were
resolved and the evidence subjected to the most rigorous examination. After these
tests, officials in some cases came to different conclusions than those of the
Bush Administration. But these new assessments remain confidential.
Because President Obama
hasn't made a radical break with the disastrous policies of his predecessor on
Guantanamo - contrary to his promise - his protestations can hardly be believed.
At this point, the only option is to escape into the open, i.e.: complete public
disclosure. Obama must lay everything completely out, without exceptions, and
explain why 172 Guantanamo detainees remain locked up. The secrecy must come to
an end.
