Looking at Guantanamo

President-elect Barak Obama has vowed to issue an executive order on his first day that begins the process of closing the US military base/prison located at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/us/politics/13gitmo.html?scp=1&sq=obama,%20guantanamo&st=cse

Even though I feel that the US needs some type of prison facility for terrorists that we capture here at home and abroad, the symbolism inherent to the decision to close Gitmo could not please me more. Since the beginning of the War on Terror, Gitmo has been a black hole for men and their rights. At the beginning of the war, our government treated Gitmo as a repository, a place where we sent terrorists (regardless of their citizenship) to indefinitely sit in teeny-tiny little cells complete with yellow painted arrows on the floor pointing toward Mecca. We imprisoned these terrorist without any promise of ever bringing any charges against them (i.e. revoked their right to habeas corpus) and denied them contact with friends, family, and, in general, counsel. Imagine that – being locked indefinitely in a cell, thousands of miles from home, without any inkling of whether or not you’ll ever see the light of day again. Doesn’t sound too American does it? Now, I acknowledge that the fact that our government does not randomly or lightly imprison men in Gitmo must temper my views. Most likely, the government imprisoned the men there because they committed a criminal or terrorist act. Unfortunately, regardless of their dangerousness and the utility of keeping terrorists off the streets, I do not think it is right to revoke the ability to seek counsel and address the charges arrayed against them. The war in which we are engaged is a limited war. It is not being fought on our shores and it has not incapacitated our courts. While some Gitmo residents may rightfully be considered “enemy combatants,” I see nothing against the US permitting them to face the charges arrayed against them.

The US Supreme Court agrees with me. In three recent cases, the Supreme Court has ruled that not only is Guantanamo legally considered American soil and thus under the jurisdiction of its Constitution and Courts (Rasul v. Bush), but that the trials held at Gitmo by military tribunals were illegal (Hamdan v. Rumsfeld) and that prisoners there have habeas corpus rights and the right to access American courts (Boumediane v. Bush). These cases knell the death toll of what it is we have tried to accomplish at Gitmo. Hopefully they will usher in a new era in the War on Terror that stops us from torturing and denying our enemies their basic human rights (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/us/14gitmo.html?_r=1&ref=us). By closing Gitmo, Obama seems to be sending this message. Its almost as if he is stating that America is done treating its enemies they way they are treating us; that we, regardless of their hatreds, will honor their humanity and treat them with basic human respect.

Rasul v. Bush (2004): http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2003/2003_03_334/

Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006): http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2005/2005_05_184/

Boumediane v. Bush (2008): http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/07pdf/06-1195.pdf