THE GOOD
I intend to close Guantanamo, and I will follow through on that. I have said repeatedly that America doesn't torture. And I'm gonna make sure that we don't torture. Those are part and parcel of an effort to regain America's moral stature in the world.
-Barack Obama
On CBS 60 Minutes, November 16, 2008.
The newly-elected President followed through-
January 22, 2009: President Obama issued three executive orders Thursday to demonstrate a clean break from the Bush administration, including one requiring that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility be closed within a year.
Not everyone liked the good ideas of closing down Guatanamo & ending torture. There's always the bad to consider...
THE BAD
Cheney was unapologetic about the harsh interrogation methods that he had approved, such as waterboarding. "I was, and remain, a strong proponent of our enhanced interrogation programme. The interrogations were used on hardened terrorists after other efforts failed," he said. "They were legal, essential, justified, successful and the right thing to do."
Guardian.co.uk 5/21/09
In an article rather erroneously (really just 1 intellectual titan & 1 moral pipsqueak) titled
"'Clash of the Titans' pits Obama against Cheney on Guantánamo closure"-
the Guardian.co.uk 5/21/09 quotes Cheney's reaction to the proposal to end torture & close Guantanamo-
When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an al-Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry," Cheney added.
For (mercifully) Ex-VP Strangelove Cheney it is not only morally wrong not to continue torturing prisoners at Guantanamo, it is also nearly outside the realm of the possible.
"The administration has found that it's easy to receive applause in Europe for closing Guantánamo," Cheney told the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington. ""But it's tricky to come up with an alternative that will serve the interests of justice and America's national security."
President Obama "suggested this should not be a problem as they would be placed in super-max prisons from which no-one had ever escaped."
Who could have a problem with that? After all, detainees were released under the Cheney/Bush administration and the country didn't seem to fall apart.
& THE UGLY
Since 1959, the U.S. sends a check for the lease amount every year, but the Cuban government has never cashed them.
Notes on Guantánamo Bay
The first U.S. presence on Guantánamo Bay was a Marine battalion that camped there on June 10 1898.
Five years later, the U.S. signed an agreement with Cuba's new government, leasing the bay for 2,000 gold coins per year. The agreement was forced on the new Cuban government through The Platt Amendment (1903).
Despite Ex President VP Cheney's professed outrage to the contrary, the Cheney/Bush administration had released detainees from Guatanamo long before Dick hurt his back while wheeling out the 6-foot safe from his seemingly hastily evacuated office.
Bush/Cheney Era Imprisonment & Releases
January 11, 2002: First group of 20 detainees arrives at Guantanamo Bay’s Camp X-Ray, where they are housed in open-air cages with concrete floors. The International Committee of the Red Cross makes its first visit six days later.
January 18, 2002: President Bush decides detainees' standing as terrorists disqualifies them from prisoner-of-war protection under the Geneva conventions.
January 27, 2002: Vice President Cheney calls the detainees "the worst of a very bad lot. They are very dangerous. They are devoted to killing millions of Americans."
October 27, 2002: Four detainees -- three Afghans and a Pakistani -- are released.
December 31, 2002: By December 31, 5 detainees are transferred out of the facility.
December 31, 2003: By December 31, 83 detainees transferred out of the facility.
December 31, 2004: By December 31, 114 detainees have been transferred out of the facility for the year.
December 31, 2005: 54 detainees transferred out of the facility for the year.
August 24, 2006: Murat Kurnaz released.
November 17, 2006: Final three detainees ruled to be No Longer Enemy Combatants are released to Albania.
December 31, 2006: 114 detainees transferred out of the facility for the year (including the three who died of apparent suicides).
November 4, 2008: One detainee is released to Somaliland.
November 11, 2008: Two Algerians transferred to Algeria.
November 25, 2008: Salim Hamdan (alleged to be Osama bin Laden's driver) is transferred to the custody of Yemen.
December 16, 2008: Three detainees are transferred to Bosnia, they are part of the Algerian Five who were ruled releasable in DC District Court in November.
December 27, 2008: Salim Hamdan is freed in Yemen.
January 17, 2009: Six detainees are transferred out of Guantnamo Bay--four to Iraq, one to Algeria, and one to Afghanistan.
The Obama Era Releases
January 20, 2009: President Obama is inaugurated.
January 22, 2009: President Obama issues three executive orders--one ordering the closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay in one year, another banning the use of controversial CIA interrogation techniques, and one ordering the review of detention policy options.
February 23, 2009: Binyam Mohammed is transferred to the United Kingdom.
May 15, 2009: Lakhdar Boumediene, an Algerian national, is released to France.
June 9, 2009: The first detainee, Ahmed Ghailani, who is not an American citizen is brought from Guantanamo Bay to the United States to face a federal trial.
June 11, 2009: Four Uighurs are transferred from Guantanamo Bay to Bermuda. One Chadian is transferred to Chad, and an Iraqi to Iraq.
June 12, 2009: Three detainees are transferred to Saudi Arabia.
August 24, 2009: Mohammed Jawad is transferred from Guantanamo to Afghanistan after a U.S. district court ordered his release.
August 28, 2009: Two Syrian detainees transferred from Guantanamo Bay to Portugal.
September 26, 2009: Ireland accepts the transfer of two Uzbeks from Guantanamo Bay. One Yemeni is transferred from Guantanamo Bay to Yemen.
October 9, 2009: Two detainees transferred from Guantanamo Bay; one to Kuwait, one to Belgium.
October 9, 2009: Judge Ricardo Urbina orders the release of the 17 Uighurs from Guantanamo Bay into the United States.
October 31, 2009: 6 Uighurs transferred to Palau.
November 13, 2009: Attorney General Eric Holder announces that five detainees, allegedly responsible for the 9/11 attacks, will be tried in federal court in the Southern District of New York.
November 30, 2009: 2 Tunisian detainees sent to Italy to face trial.
December 1, 2009: 1 Algerian detainee released to France, 1 West Bank detainee released to Hungary.
December 9, 2009: Fouad Mahmoud Al Rabiah is transferred to Kuwait. Judge Kollar-Kotelly ordered him released on September 17, 2009.
ONE YEAR LATER FROM
January 22, 2009: President Obama signs the Executive Order to close Guantanamo.
The original deadline for closing Guatanamo has passed & no new deadline has been announced.
"I don't know when the process will be done," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said on Thursday. "There's been progress on issues of siting a new detention facility. The president won't meet the deadline he laid out a year ago, but the president, his national security team, our generals in Iraq and Afghanistan understand the support for al-Qaeda that Guantanamo provides them, in recruiting, in attracting those that seek to do us harm."
Despite better stated intentions by the President than either Cheney or his former sidekick Bush could even understand, the blight of Gitmo remains-as does Cheney's threat about the difficulty of closing it down.
Obama committed his administration to closing the prison—long a symbol of U.S. terror and lawlessness—within a year. Since that time, the process of releasing or relocating or prosecuting the 200 plus men still detained at Guantanamo has become mired in bureaucratic machinations, Congressional grandstanding and fear-mongering, and legal foot-dragging.
Luckily, Republicans have a solution for the Congressional grandstanding-
While the ACLU challenged the president to work harder to close the facility, House Republican Leader John Boehner (Ohio) implored Obama to keep it open. He wrote in an op-ed that any other course of action would threaten U.S. security.
On the one hand there is an executive order calling for Guatanamo to have been shut down by yesterday. On the other hand Republicans like Boehner are calling for an infinite period of operation. So the bi-partisan approach would seem to be to only keep it in operation for half of an infinite period of time...
All in all, the Obama administration's handling of detainee issues-- from the reluctance to investigate and prosecute systematic torture, to its defense of indefinite detention—has fallen far short of the soaring rhetoric of his campaign. And now, and as the administration expands the war in Afghanistan and expands operations at the U.S. prison in Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan-- we see more clearly than ever the need for consistent, principled, nonviolent action and witness.
To raise awareness of the continuing operations at Guatanamo, Witness Against Torture organized a fast & vigil at the Capitol in Washington, DC that is ending today.
As such we have committed to a fast and daily vigil from January 11 through January 22-- the day by which the president said Guantanamo would be closed.
Today the activists' fast is ending-following the arrests of 42 activists Jan 21. Video of the Rotunda & arrests can be seen at the bottom of the page here or on youtube.com.
Maybe it even appears below-
Most of the 42 arrested at the Capitol used the names of men at Guantanamo. In the video you can hear the softly sung refrain of "we remember you."
Instead of heeding an internal call of despondency due to the hellish limbo of Guatanamo staying in business despite an executive order-it would be much better if we could hear the same call of action the brave folks in the above photo hear.
I know why they're dressed in orange, but still I'd like to think that at least a few of them are kossacks....
TODAY
If you're anywhere near Washington, DC drive, walk or run over to the
Closing Event to Join with Peaceable Assemblies Campaign [DC]
Organization Host: Witness Against Torture
Saturday, January 23, 2010 - 5:00pm - 7:00pm
Busboys and Poets
14th & V NW
Washington, DC
United States
Break the fast with Witness Against Torture and gear up for more action with the Peaceable Assembly Campaign! With special guests Frida Berrigan (Witness Against Torture, War Resisters League), Rev. Graylan Hagler (Ministers for Racial, Social and Economic Justice) and Emma's Revolution!
You can subscribe to Witness Against Torture here
To just find more info on the Campaign to Close Guatanamo & End Torture
you can go here or here.