Reply #1: 8 Reasons to Close Guantanamo Now

[Judi Lynn]

8 Reasons to Close Guantanamo Now
by Karen J. Greenburg
February 13, 2007

The first detainees arrived in Guantanamo four months to the day after the 9/11 attacks. From the opening of Camp X-Ray--the first site of imprisonment, notorious for its tin-roofed open-air cages--to the recently completed permanent prison known as Camp 6, critics have called for its closure. Even President Bush has said, "I'd like to end Guantanamo. I'd like it to be over with." Yet he refuses to close it because, he says, it holds detainees who "will murder somebody if they are let out on the street."

It's time to look at the powerful reasons to close Guantanamo, both the standard ones enumerated below--and also what may be the most compelling, if unspoken, one of all: Guantanamo must be closed because the United States needs to indicate that it has decided to change course. Closing Guantanamo will help to restore America's standing in the world and in the eyes of its own citizens. #1 It is a legal no-man's-land

Guantanamo Bay Naval Base was established as a coaling and naval station under U.S. control in 1903. It has no civilian legal authority (you can't get a marriage license there, and you can't be arraigned) and U.S. military authority is limited. According to the Department of Justice, the prison is not indisputably U.S. territory, nor does it necessarily fall under the jurisdiction of any foreign entity.

According to the Church Report--an official investigation of Guantanamo prepared by Vice Admiral Albert T. Church III, a former navy inspector general for the Armed Services Committee--Guantanamo's uncertain legal footing may have been a fundamental reason the administration decided to use the facility to interrogate al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. "Perhaps most importantly," the report states, "GTMO was considered a place where benefits could be realized without the detainees having the opportunity to contest their detention in the U.S. courts."
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http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=51&ItemID=12125