Guantanamo Bay: Where We Kicked the Tiger in the Ass
Even if, by some political miracle, Guantanamo Bay was shut down tomorrow, where would we put the prisoners? Imprisoned without trial, we couldn’t possibly confine them to a regular prison, and yet to release them freely onto America’s streets would be political suicide, not to mention extremely dangerous. International law forbids America from repatriating them and it is likely, anyway that they’d be tortured no matter where they ended up. The Economist asks the pertinent question, “Dare you let a 9/11 mastermind walk free?” -Nouse
Guantanamo Bay. Gitmo. It is the symbol around the world for what has gone wrong in the United States over the last seven years. It is one of the legacies of the Bush administration.
Billed as a necessity to fight the war on terror and keep the homeland secure, detainees have been thrown into legal limbo for years. Habeas Corpus was suspended. Interrogation techniques verging on torture, or crossing that line completely, depending on what side of the debate on which you fall, were used.
With roughly 250 detainees remaining (one being sent back to Yemen as of today), the Bush presidency winding down, and President-Elect Obama vowing to close this detention center, we have a looming problem. What do we do with the remaining prisoners?
While I feel that Mr. Obama is correct in wanting to close down the Guantanamo Bay detention center, the question of what happens to these prisoners is concerning. Some will certainly have charges brought against them and be placed into U.S. prisons for trial. Some will be tried in military courts and therefore continue to be held by the military at detention centers on military bases. But what of the rest?
It is the policy of the United States not to release these prisoners back to their countries of origin if by sending them there, there is reason to believe they will be tortured. Yet, if we can't bring sufficient charges against them to keep them in jail until a court proceeding, and we can't send them back to their country of origin, and other countries don't want them, do we release them to the streets of America?
Whether or not all these individuals carried out, or helped to plan terrorist attacks against the United States, it is virtually certain that they have no love for the United States. If they were terrorists, or potential terrorists before being detained in Guantanamo Bay, imagine their hatred for, and the motivation to harm the United States now. While we may not have created the monster, we fed and nourished him. As Tom Clancy once wrote, "If you want to kick the tiger in his ass, you'd better have a plan for dealing with the teeth." We seemed to have kicked the tiger without a plan.
So what now?
If there are charges to be brought, bring them. Charge them and put them through the courts- military or civilian. Then, depending on the trial, jail them, or set them free. Yes, that means some of them may just end up on the streets of America. That means we may have to pay for years of watching them closely, but we kicked the tiger in the ass. But, dealing with the teeth legally and fairly made us what we once were, and what we can be again, as President Regan said, "a shining city on a hill."
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