Obama Didn’t Close It

Ten years after the first prisoners of George W. Bush’s war on terror arrived at the Guantanamo base, that improvised jail and legal limbo is still open. When Obama arrived at the White House in 2009, he promised to close it within a year. He hasn’t been able to keep his promise, not only because of the judicial problems presented by some of the 167 detainees – only four of them have been sentenced – that remain there, but also because Congress, with the support of both Democrats and Republicans, has denied funds for the relocation of those remaining prisoners to a federal prison in the United States, like the one in Illinois that Obama suggested.

The permanence of this often brutal detention center in a territory leased from Cuba since 1903 remains an embarrassment to the U.S. and the West. Many European governments act indignant, but they collaborated with the secret flights run by the CIA to transport prisoners of war from Afghanistan and other locations to Guantanamo. And when Obama proposed their release, there were few European countries that opened the doors to their territories – Spain committed itself to five prisoners. Even fewer U.S. legislators were prepared to have prisoners relocate to their own districts.

Obama, who prohibited torture or “enhanced interrogation” and who maintains his intention to close the detention center, has not only failed to achieve his objectives. He also recently accepted Congress’ request to prohibit the use of military means in the relocation of these prisoners to the U.S. or any other country and to authorize the Armed Forces to detain any terrorist suspect for an unlimited time without trial, in or out of the United States. This concerns not only Guantanamao, but also other detention centers used by the U.S. in Afghanistan and other remote parts of the world.

Only half of the detainees who remain in Guantanamo, among them Jaled Sheij Mohamed, accused of organizing the 9/11 attacks, are considered truly dangerous. And it remains paradoxical that the center still operates when the U.S. has begun discussions with the Taliban on the future of Afghanistan. It’s time to close this disgrace, which undermines both Western human rights discourse and the state of law.