Friday, November 30, 2012
Don’t Believe the Hype: The Future of Guantanamo Bay
No nation is perfect. Every country has either a checkered past, a disgraceful present, or
an ugly underbelly, although most have some combination of the three. The United States is no exception. With slavery, the brutal treatment of Native
Americans, and the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War Two in the
past, contemporary America looks pretty good.
This is not to say that there are not problems which should leave a bad
taste in the mouth of patriots; the denial of equal rights to homosexuals
certainly illustrates that point. One issue
which hurts the United States in terms of international standing does not technically
exist in legal terms. This refers to, of
course, Guantanamo Bay.
While America maintains
a relatively kosher naval base on the bay, the controversy surrounding our
nation’s presence there concerns the base’s detention center. Established in 2002 to house detainees affiliated
with terrorist groups in Iraq and Afghanistan, over seven hundred individuals
have been held at the base, with the current population believed to be one
hundred sixty-six. While the detention
center usually receives heavy criticism from the Democratic Party, that
criticism does not translate into action.
One of the more
memorable promises from the 2008 presidential campaign saw then-Senator Obama
pledge to close the extra-legal prison within a year of taking office. As a visible and simple promise, the
Democratic base rallied around the pledge, but the message apparently did not
make it to Capitol Hill. The Senate
slipped an amendment into the Supplemental Appropriations Bill for 2009 which
refused funding for the transfer of detainees at Guantanamo to federal
prisons. The amendment did not just
pass, it passed convincingly, ninety “yea’s” versus six “nay’s”. At the time of the vote, Democrats held
fifty-seven of the ninety-nine seats (one seat, currently held by Democrat Al
Franken, was empty due to disputed results of a special election). Since amendments only need a simple majority
to pass, Democrats could easily have stopped the amendment but choose not to at
a startling margin.
This is relevant because
a report by the Government Accountability Office was released by Senator Dianne
Feinstein of California’s office on November 28 which stated that the prisoners
currently held at Guantanamo could be safely transferred into the U.S. prison
system. Senator Feinstein, chairwoman of
the Senate Intelligence Committee, trumpeted the report, stating that it
“demonstrates that if the political will exists, we could finally close
Guantanamo without imperiling our national security.” This is curious, however, as Senator
Feinstein voted in favor of the amendment in 2009 which blocked funding for the
very same action she now champions.
Besides, waiting for the
GAO report to come out to call for the closure of the detention center is just
an act of political cowardice. Any
clear-headed individual should be able to reason that of course the federal
prison system can absorb the Guantanamo detainees. First off, one hundred sixty-six new inmates
would represent seven-hundredths of a percent of the total federal prison
population. Secondly, while some claim
that the presence of terror detainees in prisons on American soil would lead to
increased risk of attack, this ignores the fact that the Bureau of Prisons
reports that it already contains nearly one hundred inmates convicted of
“national security” crimes. There have
been no attempted attacks on the facilities which house those individuals, nor
have there been any attempted attacks on Guantanamo Bay, which would seem like
a more preferable target.
Senator Feinstein’s
statements and the release of the GAO report by her office are just for
show. The senator has continually voted
for laws which prohibit the government from spending any money on the transfer
of detainees (“yea” on the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year
2012 which included Section 1033 blocking such funds). Until the members of Congress stop caring
about the future of their seats more than the moral imperatives which
supposedly guide our country, the Guantanamo Bay detention center will continue
to operate and remain a pockmark on America’s international standing.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment