Guantánamo

Guantánamo Bay occasionally seems like a shady relic from a recent past, when President George W. Bush allowed the War on Terror to be fought unapologetically. Guantánamo Bay is unfortunately still functioning because President Obama has not been able to keep his promise to shut down this prison, which would erase a stain on American foreign policy.

Thus, the Obama administration not only receives a dirty inheritance from the Bush era but becomes responsible for its continuation. Either way, Guantánamo remains wrong. It was already public knowledge that not all prisoners are terrorists and that the circumstances are not consistent with those of a civilized country. Now that a series of documents has been released (once again by WikiLeaks), it is painfully clear what went wrong. It is frustrating to read how hundreds of completely innocent individuals had to waste years of their lives there, simply because some military personnel and employees of the intelligence services decided it. Why? No explanation. This led to many years of heavy detention for a 14-year-old boy and a demented old man — the clearest illustrations of random, wanton and irresponsible arrests.

Naturally, these were not all just “accidental” mistakes. An Al Jazeera journalist was locked up for years because the Americans wanted to know his sources. Another example is just too cynical to be true. A man who had been held captive by the Taliban was brought to Guantánamo. They hoped to get more information from him on the Taliban’s interrogation techniques. In the meantime, more than 170 prisoners are still being held at Guantánamo. Even the al-Qaida and Taliban members being held have the right to a decent diet and fair trial.

Guantánamo is another example of what happens when one uses the wrong tools to justify a “good cause” or “just war.” It does not advocate in favor of Nobel laureate Obama that the Pentagon finds it more concerning that secret documents about Guantánamo were made public than that Guantánamo still has not been closed.