“By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, in order to effect the appropriate disposition of individuals currently detained by the Department of Defense at Guantánamo and promptly to close the detention facility at Guantánamo consistent with the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States, in the interest of justice, I hereby order ... Guantánamo will be closed no later than one year from now.”
~President Barack Obama, Jan. 22, 2009
According to a draft obtained by Politico, Pr*@%!^#t Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order to keep the military prison at Guantánamo Bay open. This would reverse the order signed by President Barack Obama on his second day in office. Thanks to congressional opposition, Obama was unable to keep his vow to shut the place down. Trump, on the other hand, will have no problem with Congress in keeping it open despite the shameful indifference to human rights and international law it represents. Nahal Toosi and Andrew Restuccia report:
The executive order, according to a draft State Department cable that officials are planning to soon send to U.S. embassies around the world, would rescind part of a separate 2009 order signed by then-President Barack Obama mandating that the facility be “closed as soon as practicable.” [...]
But for Trump, it is a powerful political statement. Trump promised during the presidential campaign to keep the Guantanamo Bay detention center open, saying in February 2016 he wanted to “load it up with bad dudes.” Last year, he said he was considering sending a man who rammed a truck into people in New York City to the facility.
It is also a rebuke to Trump's predecessor, Obama, who worked for years to close the detention center, which he warned was a recruitment tool for terrorist groups.
All told, 780 detainees have been held at the prison during its 17 years of existence. The Bush administration transferred or released 532 detainees. During his two terms, though frustrated in his objective to shutter the place, Obama transferred, repatriated, or resettled 197 detainees in 59 other countries. More than four-fifths of those Obama released were not even suspected of terrorist activity.
The first prisoner arrived at the prison 16 years ago this month. Now at least a decade after they were captured, 41 men are still held at Guantánamo. Five have been approved for transfer, and 23 are being held without charge or trial. Many bear the physical and psychological scars of torture and abuse which makes it next to impossible for them to obtain a fair trial. They remain indefinitely detained with no end in sight.
Last November after a lethal New York City attack authorities labeled the work of a terrorist, Trump said the United States needs “punishment that is far quicker and far greater than the punishment these animals are getting right now.” The U.S. needs “quick justice” and “strong justice” because “what we have right now is a joke, and it’s a laughing-stock, and no wonder so much of this stuff takes place.”
One Marine general agreed with a portion Trump’s Dirty Harry spew, but in a backhanded way. Just as he was calling for quick justice, legal proceedings at Guantánamo melted down in a defense revolt in a case regarding the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole. As a consequence, the presiding military judge in the case sentenced a Marine general to 21 days in prison and a $1,000 fine for contempt of court. A Pentagon official ordered him released two days later. The officer, Marine Brig. Gen. John Baker, said in a September 2016 talk:
“Put simply, the military commissions in their current state are a farce [...] Instead of being a beacon for the rule of law, the Guantánamo Bay military commissions have been characterized by delay, government misconduct and incompetence, and even more delay.”
And that’s no joke.
From the outset there was no need for Guantánamo. But the neoconservatives in the Bush administration thought they had the perfect way to lock up people suspected of terrorism in a place outside the reach of the Constitution or international law. The land the U.S. leased at gunpoint in perpetuity after the Spanish-American-Cuban War of 1898 fit the bill: not under Cuba’s control and not really U.S. territory. A jurisdictionless limbo. Ultimately, the federal courts didn’t buy a hunk of that argument. But not before the prison had been filled with detainees, some of them having been tortured at secret CIA black sites before arriving.
The proper place to try suspected terrorists is in U.S. civilian courts instead of the hybrid military commissions now being used. Indeed, more than 600 such people have been tried, convicted and sentenced in civilian courts since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.
Given Republicans’ deep concern—ahem—for government frugality, you would think expense alone would close the prison. The annual cost of incarcerating an inmate at a maximum security federal lock-up: $78,000. The annual cost to keep each detainee at Guantánamo: more than $10 million.
The draft cable states that the Department of Defense, together with the State Department and other U.S. agencies will “recommend criteria to the President for determining detention disposition outcomes for individuals captured on the battlefield.” Whether that applies only to the 41 still held at Guantánamo or to new prisoners taken in the many places U.S. troops and special forces have been deployed is unknown.
While the cable does not appear to indicate any big change in the status quo for Guantánamo, we can expect that the promoters of GOPropaganda will elicit applause from Trump’s base by pointing out he is the tough guy while his opponents in the matter are candy asses. Given his views on torture, it would be no surprise to see Trump also reverse Obama’s executive order on guidelines for interrogation of detainees captured in armed conflicts. Likely something worse than waterboarding.