Truthdig: Closing Guantanamo

[marmar]

Closing Guantanamo
Posted on Oct 31, 2008

By Stanley Kutler


The U.S. government’s failure to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center for alleged terrorists continues to haunt and color our standing in the world. Barack Obama and John McCain both endorsed closing the facility. Even President George W. Bush has been known to utter such a heretical idea, and some of his top aides have expressed similar sentiments. In 2006, Bush said, “I’d like to close Guantanamo, but I also recognize that we’re holding some people that are darn dangerous, and that we better have a plan to deal with them in our courts.” As the old Kentucky political prescription says, watch the way he acts, not the way he talks.

Whatever he meant, Bush now clearly has reversed himself and has chosen to do nothing. Guantanamo prison will not close on his watch; there are no plans “to deal” with the detainees “in our courts.”

As to his “war on terror,” Bush concedes nothing. Some brave or disgusted soul somewhere in the bureaucratic maze has leaked the fact that the president ignored numerous options for closing the prison. On Oct. 17, 2008, the Financial Times reported that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates pushed the idea, but the Justice Department reportedly opposed moving the prisoners to American bases or prisons. You would have to be on another planet to be unaware of the not-so-subtle hands of Vice President Dick Cheney and his staff in all this. According to The New York Times, Cheney and his staff successfully argued that maintaining Guantanamo’s active status is necessary to validate the administration’s policy on terrorists.

In any event, the effect is to maintain the status quo—in this case, maintaining a facility that has earned us only international enmity.

Criticism from “Old Europe” is to be expected, but now that Tony Blair is gone, our British allies have rejected “the Guantanamo model.” Stella Rimington, the former director general of England’s domestic intelligence agency, voiced hope that the next American president would ratchet down the talk of a “war on terror,” even expressing the sacrilegious notion that there has been a huge overreaction to 9/11. One official who has prosecuted terrorism trials for several years rejected any notion of a “British Guantanamo” where defendants’ rights would be totally absent. Imagine—our British cousins maintain their faith in the Magna Carta. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081031_closing_guantanamo/

[nancyr]

1. See Taxi To The Dark Side...

to get a clear understanding of our "war on terror", get this dvd. It's painful to watch, but it's something every single person in this country should see. Anyone who can watch this without being being upset is not a human.