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The Left Splits Over Bagram.
Adam Serwer asks if sending some Guantanamo detainees to Bagram is a good or bad idea:
On his second day in office, President Barack Obama ordered Guantanamo Bay Prison closed by January of 2010. Since then, the administration has struggled to meet its self-imposed deadline -- Congress has blocked the administration from releasing cleared detainees into the United States, and only recently agreed to allow Guantanamo detainees to be brought to U.S. soil for trial. Several administration officials have admitted publicly that it is unlikely Guantanamo Bay prison will be closed by January. Despite Congress' apprehension over closing Guantanamo, a consensus has emerged among military officials and human rights activists: that the prison, which has become the symbol of U.S. human rights abuses and lack of due process, harms the our image abroad. Former President George W. Bush, Gen. David Petraeus, and Sen. John McCain have all called for it to be closed.
With Congress refusing to resettle cleared detainees in the United States, and Republicans like Pete Hoekstra fighting any effort to create a prison facility on U.S. soil to house those the administration does not want to release or transfer, the White House has been left with few options. Other countries have been reluctant to take detainees when the United States itself has been willing to take none.
COMMENTS (1)
the problem with these statements is that these are not internment facilities based upon judicial detention. The purpose of these facilities is to take individuals off the field of battle that pose a real threat to U.S. and coalition forces. The determining factors for release should not be whether or not these individuals are criminals, but whether they had the will to be involved in actions against coalition forces, or actually did. Even those individuals held wrongly commit a crime according to the Afghan Code of Law, by lying about their limited knowledge of Taliban activities. Those that are not involved in anit-coalition activities and co-operate with the guard force are released according to the precedings of the DRB process.
Posted by: former U.S. service member | November 22, 2009 5:24 PM