Is President-Elect Obama Serious about Closing Guantanamo Bay?
President-elect Obama’s plans for Guantanamo Bay Prison have been vague at best. In his campaign promises he stated the base would close but he has stayed very quiet about his actual plans. “But I don’t want to be ambiguous about this. We are going to close Guantanamo and we are going to make sure the procedures we set up are ones that abide by our Constitution.”
But what procedures does he plan to set up? On January 12, the Associated Press reported that Obama plans to issue an executive order during his first week in office to close the base. This is a smart move but doesn’t signify a change in position from the current Administration.
Guantanamo Bay has been called a symbol of mismanagement in the war on terror and its closing should not be considered a sign of things to come. Many in Washington and the world organizations abroad (the EU, the UN) have already stated that they would like the prison closed. President Bush himself has said he would have liked to shut it down but there have been too many complications. Even John McCain made a campaign push to shut down the prison by executive order.
The closing of the base is inevitable and the public should be conscious of this instead of thinking that Obama alone would pursue its closing. Yet we must keep in mind Obama has become less direct about the speed of withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq the closer we get to inauguration and this could roll-over to the closure of the base as well.
A great opportunity could be missed if the Guantanamo closing isn’t handled quickly, smoothly and correctly. The new administration has a chance to break from the former administration with a swift transition to a new plan. But it appears Obama has been prepping the public for a drawn out closure of the base, saying that the situation is a difficult one. This echoes what the Bush administration has been saying since 2006.
Obama’s team sites complications with the closure, such as how to deal with the remaining detainees, how to try the charged, and how to deal with those released. Some contest the idea of bringing these “enemy combatants” to American soil, claiming them to be a danger and opening opportunity for complications in the court system.
Concern has also been raised that by bringing the prisoners stateside it might they might be left indefinitely as it has been difficult to find them asylum in any other country including their origin. If the President-elect wanted to make a strong stance he would implement strict, easy to follow standards and regulations about the imprisonment, trials and releases of these, instead of the confusing and varying ways the Bush Administration dealt with it.
A standard on how to deal with the Guantanamo bay prisoners must be made that will be taken seriously by the rest of the world. A reasonable and approved system for dealing with the prison, and the subsequent challenges that the closure would produce, could go a long way in presenting the new President’s strength.
It has been proposed that a new legal system should be set up in order to try the remaining detainees. The idea is not new, in fact, it brings to mind the military tribunals and commissions that have failed for the Bush administration. A new court system would need to be unveiled at the time of the executive order. If not, the new administration may appear to have no direction, especially if the specifics take time to come out. It would need to look clean cut, direct and strong if it will be rushed. Otherwise criticism will rise and will continue into whatever plan is eventually adopted.
Another option would be holding criminal trials in the U.S. Out of the 250 detainees being held at the base, 30 are considered “high value,” meaning their cases are steeped in military intelligence and other sensitive material. This becomes difficult when brought into open court where military intel and other government information could be thrown out or suppressed to keep classified information quiet. This also concerns many Americans who fear bringing these suspects to U.S. soil would be considerably dangerous.
The clearest option would be trials in the military court-martial system. This would require a higher standard of evidence, the kind gathered by military intel, than the current military tribunals. This system would help establish credibility for this new administration and garner some faith from the global community.
The real difficulty comes when deciding how to rehabilitate detainees not convicted but also not able to return to their native countries nor other countries that are reticent to allow asylum. These decisions can be made over time, gradually, and on a one-by-one basis.
Everyone agrees that the treatment of prisoners has been questionable. Some claim methods used do not hold up under the protections of the Geneva Convention. The definition of whom and what these prisoners should be classified as have added to the confusion. But there is little argument that the alleged acts of torture, including sleep deprivation and beatings, cannot be considered anything but demoralizing—for both the prisoner and the reputation of the United States.
“The President-Elect has repeatedly said the legal framework at Gitmo has failed to successfully and swiftly prosecute terrorists,” said one unnamed official. But Obama’s most recent comments have suggested that it may take time to shut down the prison due to difficulties that it could cause. This could be a detrimental start to what was billed as a “hopeful” era.